Yesterday I finally saw Life Is Beautiful and I
loved it. I hope Roberto Begnini receives the Oscar for
something, acting, directing, writing, being alive, I don't care
what.
He was absolutely heart-wrenching in the scene
where the doctor asked him about the riddle of the duckling. You
could see it all in his face: the hope that the doctor could save
them all, the confusion when the "message" turned out
to be a frivilous riddle, and the death of hope with the
realization that the doctor was oblivious to his plight.
Everyone has already weighed in on this movie
and I haven't anything to add except the hope that Begnini is
justly rewarded for his efforts in some way. This was an
excellent piece of work.
I was wondering if the choice of his characters
last name, Orefice, could have been in any way a play on Orpheus
(wasn't he the one who followed Eurydice into Hell?). Although in
this film, it was she who followed.
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