Hope… is beautiful!!!

I had the good fortune to watch an excellent movie recently… “Life is beautiful”. This Italian masterpiece “La Vita e bella” is probably one of the most beautifully made movies in in world cinema…

The story is about a Jewish bookkeeper Guido (played to perfection by Roberto Benigni) and his family, during the Nazi era.

While I have seen many World War II movies, or war movies in general, what makes this movie special is the hope that it brims you with, once you are thru with the movie. Guido and his family are taken to one of the many concentration camps that were prevalent during Hitler’s regime. What can a father do in this case? Does he tell him the grim reality, scaring the little boy to death? Does he try to do something heroic (like our desi movies) and save the boy and his family(making it too far fetched to believe)? NO! Instead, Guido tells the kid that the whole thing is a game, and the winner gets a real tank!

What I loved about the movie is the beautiful way in which Guido seeks hope in the darkest moment. His is the character that I cannot relate to, but would love to have an attitude like his. Be it wooing his lady love in a very innocent but cute manner, or hiding the racial discrimination that was meted against them for not being the ‘Aryan‘ race, or saving his son’s life in the most unusual yet believable manner thru sheer optimism.

How many times have we faced situations where we have faced despair, lost hope, immersed ourselves in self pity and bawled away to doom to everyone about out fate or kismet?? I have done that a lot of times. While I am not guaranteeing that I shall never do it again, what this movie taught me is what you see is what you get! While I believe in being realistic, than optimistic or pessimistic, this movie showed me the difference in being realistic and being cynical or critical about one’s choices.

I guess, our lives are governed by the choices that we make… But then, once a choice is made, we spend too much time analyzing if the choice made was correct and incorrect. Our ineptitude to identify the present from the ‘recent past’ makes us not cherish the present. Irrespective of the choices we make, I have been inspired by this movie to live the present to the fullest, and plan the future without ruining the present. Irrespective of the darndest situation that engulfs us, we get bogged down only if we lose hope. And this movie has taught me that ‘Nothing is worth losing your hope for’.

Yes, I agree… Life is indeed beautiful. and ‘Hope’ makes it so…