关键词: 美丽人生, 创伤叙事, 大屠杀, 二战

Abstract:

The film Life Is Beautiful directed by Roberto Benigni was first released in Italy in 1997 and a 4K restored version of the film was released in mainland China in 2020. The film tells the story of a Jewish father who, in order to protect his son’s innocence in the concentration camp during World War II, pretends that the torture of the camp is a game and eventually helps his son survive the plight. Domestic research on the film has focused on celebrating fatherly love and human nature, exploring optimism from a philosophical perspective, and analyzing the sound and images of the film. In China, the film enjoys a good reputation for its touching fatherly love and superbly subtle production techniques. Internationally, however, the film has been controversial for its historical presentation, comedic form and characterization. This article explores the trauma narrative of the film and makes an analysis of the international controversy. In the article, the author holds the opinion that the essence of the controversy is the conflict between artistic aesthetics and strong morality. At the end of the article, the author also makes an open-ended discussion of how to present traumatic historical events for films.

Key words: Life is Beautiful, Trauma Narrative, Holocaust, World War II