Analysis of film with structuralist approach

Here I am attempting to analyse 1997 Italian movie 'Life Is Beautiful' with structuralist approach.

The plot of the movie, we can clearly separate in two parts. First half is Romantic comedy and other half is sad comedy and situation of world war two. This structure can be found in many books and movies. Romance comedies like 'As you like it' 'Comedy of errors' and like company of heroes, The diary of Anne Frank, The pianist and hundreds of other movies deals with situations of second world war.

The sign meaning of the movie is that one Jewish father's sacrifice for his son. But the signified meaning is the situation of Jewish families during second world war and Hitler's brutality. Though there is no presence of Hitler. It gives picture of brutal idea of killing Jewish people in gas chamber.

Narrator of the film is a man who was a boy in film and tells the story when he is young. Order of the narration is simple. Story starts with hero, he meets a girl and get married with her, they had a child, they caught by Nazi force, and in attempt to save his child father killed, Germany defeats and boy meets mother. Frequency is singular. Events happens once and narrated once. Duration is long. Five years passes in movie. Voice of the narrator is one of the character of the story. Mood and focalization have shown by camera and dialogues.

So, this was my attempt to analyse a film with structuralist approach.

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Ajit Kaliya

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