The movie mainly tells the story of Guido and his son Giosue of their experience in a concentration camp during the Second World War. Being Jews; Guido, Giosue, together with Guido's uncle Eliseo were incarcerated, not for any crime, but for being what they were. As was usual, on arrival at the camp, older people and children were executed as they were of no use as slave labor; Eliseo died at the gas chambers, Giosue, on the other hand, was spared because he hated taking showers and hid when the children were ordered to the showers.
Guido made it appear to Giosue that they were taking part in a contest where kids who hid from the guards, kept quiet, did not complain of hunger and so on would win points. The first one to earn a thousand points would win a tank as a prize. All of the rules that Guido contrived were designed to hide Giosue and spare him from certain death.
As the war wound down, the Allied forces advanced to the camp and there was general mayhem. Guido told Giosue to hide inside a metal box telling him to stay in there and only get out once everybody had left, further telling him that it would be the final test of the game and that if he did that, he would win the tank. Guido then sought out his wife Dora but was confronted by a guard who decided to execute him; as Guido was being led to execution, he passed by where Giosue was hiding and Guido winked at Giosue who was watching the scene from a small opening. Giosue winked back to signal that he understood that he had to keep quiet and stay in the box until everyone had left. Guido, meanwhile, was executed out of sight of Giosue but the shot could be heard.
After an interminable amount of time and everything had quieted down, Giosue emerged from the box right as the first Allied tank was entering the camp. Giosue was overjoyed and thought that the tank was his prize for doing exactly as his father had told him.
The movie is heart-wrenching, especially at the end when an adult Giosue reflected on the events with a full understanding of what his father did at that time. Guido tried his best to shield Giosue from the horror of the events surrounding them during the darkest hour of the great war that engulfed the world.
Confronted about the movie's seeming flippant take of the Holocaust; Benigni replied "to laugh and to cry comes from the same point of the soul, no? I'm a storyteller: the crux of the matter is to reach beauty, poetry, it doesn't matter if that is comedy or tragedy. They're the same if you reach the beauty."
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/jan/29/awardsandprizes
There are those who choose to wallow in their victimhood and in the process fail to see the humanity of the character of Guido who wanted to insulate his innocent son from the horrors of the events unfolding in their midst. That, I think, is worth reflecting on. Meanwhile, the search for a beautyful lyfe is worth pursuing.
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