JoyOfMovies.com: How Beautiful is Life Really?

How Beautiful Is Life Really?
By Dan Buck
In one of the most powerful films of the year Roberto Benigni's message is as simple as his title. "Life is Beautiful." But is it? Yes, God is good. But man is depraved. Creation is perfect, but sin and corruption have tainted God's image in the world. So is life beautiful? For the mainstream Christian there are the easy answers that aren't really answers at all: "Life with Jesus is beautiful" or "This is nothing compared to our life eternal." How can life be beautiful with cancer and pornography and oppression and taxes and heart attacks and black jelly beans? At the same time, we obviously find life precious and worth living or we would not bear children or fight for the right to life. As is often the case, we are sitting atop a major philosophical issue which is quite possibly the most challenging question to Christian faith. How can a God that is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-benevolent (all good) allow so much evil and pain to come upon his children (both the faithful and unfaithful)? Certainly humanity has brought these things upon itself, but God knew when he created us that Adam would sin and the domino effect of depravity that would ensue. So this world that we live in is part of God's plan. So what's the deal, God? Well, I could quote the major philosophers to offer up their answers to the question, or, to prove that movies can be profound explorations of truth, I could talk about the ways we see popular films addressing this issue. And since this is "JoyOfMovies.com," I better do the latter. (Besides, I can't spell most of the philosophers names anyway.) Therefore, the following is a list of three relatively recent films that address this issue and a synopsis of where they end up thematically.
Life is Beautiful Guido Orefice is a free-spirited Italian Jew. He and his friend move to a city to start a bookstore when Guido happens upon a beautiful women whom he calls Principessa (Princess). Guido uses his passion for life and his natural humorous manner to win her affections and eventually her hand. When the war hits and Guido and his wife and child are taken to a concentration camp, Guido spends every ounce of energy and humor to convince his son that it is all a game. In one scene, when Guido and his son arrive at the camp, a German soldier enters their cabin and asks if any of them speak German. Guido asks a bunkmate as to the nature of the soldier's question and raises his hand even though he can't speak a word of German. Guido is then chosen as the translator. The soldier begins describing the work that will have to be done by the prisoners and the terrible things that they must endure. Guido, however, for the benefit of his son describes the rules of the "game." No crying. No asking for mommy. No asking for snacks. It's a very funny scene although one is almost afraid to laugh because of the seriousness of the situation. This irony puts the viewer in the unique position of deciding whether he or she will live by the motto of the film while they are sitting in the theatre. If you can laugh here at this terrible thing, you can laugh anywhere. At another time, Guido and his son sneak into an office and over the loudspeaker the son proclaims "Buon giorno, Principessa!" so that his mother can hear him. When she hears her child's small voice amplified out over the camp, she not only realizes he's alive, but she also realizes that she is still a Principessa despite her prisoner's clothes and the sub-human treatment. Again the message is clear. If you can find joy in this grim place, you can find joy in life. If you can make treasure out of trash, then for you, "Life is Beautiful."
Se7en Certainly those who have seen this film will initially think it a strange choice for an article about the beauty of life. However, the film is centrally about whether life is worth fighting for. Summary: Detectives Mills and Sommerset are on the case of a serial killer who's MO is to kill in a manner that demonstrates the seven deadly sins. Sommerset, the older and more experienced detective, spends most of the film world-weary. He is tired of horrific crimes becoming daily routine and is ready to call it quits. He describes to Mills his decision to quit and move out of the city. Mills, an idealistic and slightly naive rookie, answers him angrily. "I don't think you're quitting because you believe these things you say. I don't. I think you want to believe them, because you're quitting. And you want me to agree with you, and you want me to say, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're right. It's all f---ed up. It's a f---ing mess. We should all go live in a f---ing log cabin.' But I won't. I don't agree with you. I do not. I can't." This becomes the primary theme of the film. In this disturbingly dark look at sin and depravity, the viewer travels the same road as Sommerset, ready to give up. His position makes me think of the isolationist Christian. Afraid or tired of going into the world to make some kind of difference and so they shut themselves away in a Christian ghetto, with its own language, its own art (sort of) and ready for deliverance. After a series of events (which I will not disclose as to ruin the film) Sommerset comes to this conclusion: "Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part." And so, life is grim. It's horrifying, but the answer is not to give up.
City of Angels Summary: An angel is fascinated by humanity and falls in love with a human (which normally wouldn't be believable except that the human is Meg Ryan) and decides to "fall" and become human to be with her. While a lot of the theological implications of the plot are left dangling in the wind, there is much to be gleaned from this film about life's beauty. First of all, the fact that an angel would be interested in living life as a human is a fascinating concept. And why not? Emil Brunner states (okay, so one philosopher slipped in here): God "has made known as his world purpose the restoration and perfection of his image in man; that therefore not only the history of humanity, but the history of the whole Cosmos shall be consummated in God-humanity. It is this aspect of the Christian conception of man that gives him his incomparable and unique place in the Universe . . . If it is true that God created man in his image, and this image is realized in Christ's God-manhood, then nothing, either in the sphere of nature or in that of history, can uproot this humanism" (Brunner, 551). Now certainly there are those that are pulling the old "duck and cover" when I mention humanism. I'd ask that you disassociate it with Shirley Maclaine and granola until I've made my point. An angel could indeed be fascinated with human experience, but what's important is that human experience is portrayed in this film as something desirable. The film shows the angel wanting to know the experiences of eating a pear, making love, footy pajamas and even pain. We take these things for granted but truthfully all of them make up human experience. We wouldn't know the sweetness of candy if we hadn't tasted a lemon. We wouldn't know the peace of a Sunday afternoon if we hadn't experienced the rush of a Monday morning. We wouldn't know love but for loss. And here's the biggie: We wouldn't know life if we didn't experience death. Therefore the film puts forward a sort of joy-pain relationship that sounds very C.S. Lewisian. Joy is consummated by life's pain. Life is a work of art and like every work of art the dark strokes accent the light. And as artwork goes, "life is beautiful."
I'm not going to try to tell you which of these movies' themes are correct. I don't really know. These are certainly not the only films that address this issue. I encourage you to find others and unpack the worldview. However, please don't give up there. Just because these movies are not inherently Christian films doesn't mean that the truth cannot be found in them. This question is a tough one, and my big-picture attitude toward life is always changing in small or large ways. But above all remember that no conclusion you make should be final or oversimplified. Oscar Wilde once said, "When people tell me life is hard, I ask 'Compared to what?'" Ask those kind of questions all the time. "It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter." (Proverbs 25:2)
Sources:
Brunner, Emil. "Christianity and Civilization" Readings in Christian Humanism. Augsburg Publishing House: Minneapolis, 1982.
The Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com