Life Is Beautiful

**Warning: Movie Spoiler Ahead**

Last night Paul & I watched Life Is Beautiful. It's a 1997 Italian film about a Jewish Italian man, Guido, who helps his son, Joshua, and his wife, Dora (Italian but not Jewish) survive in a Nazi concentration camp by making his son think the whole thing is a game, a contest to win a real tank--the first one to 1000 points win; and by communicating to his wife through the intercom and music while in the camp. He gives Joshua rules (no crying, no wanting your mommy, no snacks, he has to stay hidden and quiet, etc.) and then helps to remind him how important it is to keep the rules and win. Near the end of the movie, Guido is informed by a fellow detainee that the war is over and the Nazis are trying to destroy all evidence of the camp and prisoners. Guido hides Joshua, tells him not to come out until there's no one left and he doesn't hear anything, and then rushes off to find Dora to try and save her. In his efforts, he is caught by a Nazi guard who takes him and kills him. The next morning, the camp is quiet and Joshua leaves his hiding place. He enters the empty street and looks around to see a U.S. tank drive down the street. He's excited, believing his dad was telling the truth and he just won a tank. The U.S. officer picks him up and as they leave the camp along with several detainees who survived the night. Along the way Joshua sees his mom and is reunited with her telling her that he won! The movie is narrated by an older, wiser, grateful Joshua who recognizes the sacrifice his father made to keep him alive. The movie won several Academy Awards including Best Foreign Language Film.

Paul was working in a movie theatre when it was released so he had seen most of it before. This was my first time watching it and it touched my heart. I enjoyed the beginning of the movie and then was tense and nervous, and sick, for the rest of the movie. I was sickened as I thought of the real victims of the Holocaust and as I realized that their experiences were undoubtedly much, much worse than it was portrayed in the film; that families and people were torn apart and treated as animals, less than human.

The movie was very well done. I was moved by how the father tried to make every experience in the concentration camp a positive one for his son, to constantly give him hope, never giving up the facade he had created, never exposing the truth as to why they were really there... all the while knowing they may not make it out alive. It really made me just want to hold my children and my husband close and give thanks to a kind Heavenly Father for them. It made me remember how blessed I am to live in a day and time when, probably thanks to the Holocaust, such an atrocity would not be responded to as slowly as it was then.

It also made me so much more grateful for the plan of salvation and the atonement of my Savior, Jesus Christ. To have knowledge and faith that, thanks to Jesus Christ, this life is not the end. We will be able to be reunited with our families forever and all those families who were, are and surely will be unrighteously ripped from their families were, are and will be reunited with those families again. Though it may be little consolation to those without such understanding, and even to some with, such faith and knowledge gives me great hope as we live in these last days--of wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, natural disasters, diseases, pestilences, when living a moral life and seeking that for our children is viewed as intolerant, bigoted and weak; when "bad" or sin is preached as good and desireable, and when Satan's grasp on the hearts of men is so strong and his reign here on the earth and is so open and rampant--that if I remain strong and endure to the end, I can have my family forever! And for that reason, life really should be "beautiful" all of the time!