Life is Beautiful
Director: Roberto Benigni. Cast: Roberto Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, Giorgio Cantarini, Giustino Durano. 1997. 120 minutes
This highly acclaimed Italian movie is set against the background of World War II and the infamous Jewish holocaust.
Guido Orefice, an Italian Jew, while waiting to set up a bookshop, works as waiter in a hotel where his uncle is matre d’. He falls in love with Dora (who is from a rich family, and is not Jewish). They marry and have a son, Giosue. When the boy is five, Germans start rounding up the Jews and taking them to a concentration camp. Although Dora is not Jewish, she too gets into the prisoners’ train, to be close to her husband and child.
Guido thinks up elaborate games to hide the terrible reality of their situation from Giosue, and keep him happy, though they are in a death camp. Using creativity and humour to hide this intense pain and the horrors of the situation, Guido does all he can to protect his little boy, and make him believe that the whole experience is a game, where the winner will be rewarded with a real war tank. Giosue thus lives in happy ignorance, and escapes the death the Nazis have planned for all Jews. In a final scene, Guido takes the ultimate risk to keep his son safe, but exposes himself to a terrible risk.
Miracles from Heaven
Director: Patricia Riggen. Cast: Jennifer Garner, Kylie Rogers, Martin Henderson, John Carroll Lynch, Eugenio Derbez, and Queen Latifah. 2016. 109minutes.
Based on the real life of Christy Beam and her family, this movie recounts the story of a miraculous survival through the power of faith. In 2008, Annabelle Beam, the five-year-old daughter of a Texas farming family, is diagnosed with an intestinal blockage that is fatal. The family’s faith is put to the test. Christy, her mother would not give up and is willing to go to any extent to save her daughter. Her husband also has to reckon with financial failure; but their prayers keep hope alive. Christy finds out a specialist doctor in Boston named Nurko. Ignoring the fact that she needed to wait long for an appointment, she persists on seeing him. The friendly and jovial Dr Nurko undertakes the treatment.
In the hospital, Annabelle befriends a waitress named Angela who cheers up the family, taking them around Boston. A fellow patient named Haley is dying of cancer. Haley’s father, Ben, is an atheist. He does not like it when Annabelle gifts her crucifix to Haley and teaches her to pray. After another surgery, the mother and daughter return home—without promise of permanent cure.
Annabelle has a serious accident while playing. They climb an old tree in their yard. A branch breaks and Annabelle falls down thirty feet inside a deep and hollow trunk. Everyone is sure that she is dead. The rescuers take her to the hospital, where she is subjected to intensive medical examinations.
A miracle has happened. Annabelle not only regains her consciousness with no major injuries, but appears completely healed of her fatal illness. She also tells her family about an out- of-the-body experience she had during the accident. She claims to have met God, who promised her cure when she returned to earthly life. Christy had stopped going to church in despair at God’s indifference to her family crisis and also the judgmental attitude of some of the fellow parishioners. She returns to Church to testify about the family’s experience. Some refuse to believe the testimony. Unexpectedly, Ben, the Boston journalist (who had been an atheist) turns up to tell them of his experience. His daughter Haley had died but had a joyful passing, thanks to Annabel’s gift of faith in the hospital. Annabel had become instrumental in the healing and spiritual rebirth of another family. The story presents convincingly how families struggle in the face of crises, how faith is restored and how God’s caring love works through parents and children.
Dr Gigy Joseph
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