What does Roberto Benigni mean at the end of "Life is Beautiful"?!
Question: He (or his character, or a character with a similar voice), says, "This is my story. This is the sacrifice my father made." According to every source I can find, however, the story is fictional, and Benigni is not Jewish or in any other way a Holocaust victim. Is this simply the voice of the fictional son, speaking as an adult? The way it is done really makes it seem like a real-life inspiration is being revealed. Perhaps Benigni's father made some other sort of enormous sacrifice for him?
Answers: He (or his character, or a character with a similar voice), says, "This is my story. This is the sacrifice my father made." According to every source I can find, however, the story is fictional, and Benigni is not Jewish or in any other way a Holocaust victim. Is this simply the voice of the fictional son, speaking as an adult? The way it is done really makes it seem like a real-life inspiration is being revealed. Perhaps Benigni's father made some other sort of enormous sacrifice for him?
It's just the voice of the son, grown up. It's a way of ending the movie to let us know that 1) the kid survived, he made it to adulthood but 2) he eventually learned how much his father had done for him.
I never even for an instant thought it was Benigni speaking, or trying to tack on a "real life" experience. It's just a way to end a fictional movie in a heart-warming way.
It is a story, based on some relayed experiences I think, but still a story.
No, I don't know the history of Benigni but what you told, is about the litlle boy in the movie. He was talking the history for us. I think that was fiction. Kiss.
Probably. But it would be a safe assumption that some people made greater sacrifices....and seen greater horrors than the ones seen in that movie (or other movies of the same theme). It may be a fictional work...or perhaps semi-fictional.... but the Holocaust itself has been the cause of so many sacrifices and horrors no movie plot can effectively portray with so much eloquence.