Consider the opening prologue the director uses in this movie. He has the narrator speak. What the narrator says at the beginning and end of the movie provides the framework for the purpose of the film. Keep that in mind. Describe the opening scene and explain the message being conveyed by choosing it?
The film opens with an atmospheric shot of a silhouetted figure wandering through dense dust and debris. "This is a simple story," the narrator says, "but not an easy one to tell. Like a fable, there is sorrow, and like a fable, it is full of wonder and happiness." The shot then brightens, and we see a simple country road. It is 1939, and we are in Abrezzo, Italy. Two men drive along in a car, and the driver animatedly recites a poem to his friend. Finally, he yells out, "the brakes are gone!" The passenger thinks it is merely another line in the poem, but the driver declares, "No, they're really gone! The brakes are gone!" The car barrels down the road, through the woods, and into a parade, where the passengers' desperate arm movements to the waiting crowd appear to be "Heil Hitler" gestures. The crowd eagerly responds, raising their right arms in kind. When the army official who was actually supposed to be honored in the parade passes the crowd, everyone falls silent in confusion.
The moody, evocative opening of the film, with a shadowy character struggling through dense fog, provides a sharp contrast to the cheerful, boisterous scene that follows, which depicts Guido and Ferruccio barreling down a country road in an open-air car. Indeed, the first scene is so at odds with the entire first half of the film that viewers may forget about it entirely until the horrors of the second half begin. Yet, the first scene alerts us to the true complexity of Life is Beautiful: this is a lighthearted comedy, for certain, but it has a dark side that must be reckoned with.
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