Life is harsh, that's what news bulletins, social media walls, and daily programs tell us. Life is harsh and painful, and there are those who kill every day, even every hour, without a specific motive, and without committing any sin other than being in a time that devours the innocent, drinks their blood, and gets intoxicated by the screams of children.

Life has been harsh not just today, not for a year or five years. Life didn't suddenly become harsh, and humans haven't recently become desensitized to killing each other. Cruelty has existed since the beginning of time and will remain forever. We see the cruelty of today "live," and we see the cruelty of the past in books and on movie screens. Madness has always dominated humans, making them adhere to the religion of murder.

Once upon a time, there was a madman who exterminated a people "not his own people, for he wasn't crazy to that extent." He gathered them and crammed them into gas chambers, executing them. Much has been said about this fanatic madman; history has spoken about his Nazi camps until it was exhausted. What he did was a rich material for filmmakers to narrate about World War II, Nazi German camps, Hitler's henchmen, and their extermination of Jews. There was a lot of crying, drama, and impactful movies. Among them is the film we are talking about today, the only thing different is that our film carries a title that proclaims, "Life is Beautiful."

Is Life Really Beautiful

The film "Life Is Beautiful" takes place during World War II in Italy, where an Italian young man, who is Jewish, kind-hearted, and lighthearted, makes his way through life and meets a beautiful girl whom he falls in love with, marries, and they have a child. Then they are captured and sent to a Nazi camp, the father with the child and the mother in the women's camp. From the moment they board the police bus crowded with their neighbors, the son wonders about their destination, and the father quickly and spontaneously answers that it is a surprise he arranged with the mother as a birthday gift for the son, and he will tell him everything when they arrive.

Once the father learns the camp's rules, he exerts all his efforts to convince his young son that they are in a play camp, and that they must do their best to win first place and receive a real tank to take home. The father deceives all circumstances to make himself a barrier between his son and the camp's cruelty, and throughout their time in the camp, he succeeds in continuing to make his son believe that they are playing and having a good time.

The child comes close to uncovering the truth more than once, even getting dangerously close to being one of the victims in the gas chamber. Each time, his father manages to convince him that the game becomes more exciting, and that they are getting closer to winning. The game ends when the Americans enter the camp, and the father takes his final step in his deceptive game to ensure his son wins the game, even if he loses everything.

Crying and laughing

When "Benigni," the protagonist and director of the film that won the Academy Award for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film in 1997, was asked about the contrasting opinions about the film, he stated that it is a harsh tragedy. Laughter and tears come from the same point in your soul, and the film does not trivialize the Holocaust and portray it as a joke. Instead, it delves into the depths of the tragedy to the extreme, to the point where it makes you laugh out of excessive pain.

The film is classified as a comedy and drama, but you will never laugh in it. Perhaps you will smile with empathy, but even that smile will be accompanied by teary eyes. Roberto Benigni completely changes your perception of life in this film, especially when you watch it later in a time that is even harsher.

The fundamental difference between this film and all the other films that depicted the tragedies of the Holocaust is the amount of sensitivity and humanity it evokes within you without presenting you with heartbreaking scenes, severed limbs, stacked corpses, and blood everywhere. Without direct pain, the film managed to reach the utmost painful point and exert intense pressure on it. The cruelest laughter is when you laugh at the innocence that is being led to a painful fate, unaware of what awaits it.

Love Confronting Pain

They say that love can conquer everything. But now we see what is happening around us in the world and we realize that there are things that love cannot face and triumph over. There are nations that their rulers exterminate them with cold blood, and love fled from these lands out of fear of death, leaving humans to fall. No more romance. Love cannot stand against flamethrowers, bombs, chemical weapons, and planes.

In the film, love managed to confront pain, to save loved ones from death even if the price was paid in advance without guarantees. In the film, the father gambled that his love for his son and wife would save them. He held onto this hope until the last moment, until the last wink of his eye to his child's eyes sitting in the telephone box. Love was stronger than Hitler, the gas chambers, and the Holocaust.

Love is stronger than pain, on screens and in movies. But today, well, let's be realistic. There is no love in this country.