Life is Beautiful, But Not for Jews Another View of the Film by Benigni

With sharp, uncompromising logic and eye-opening insight, Niv analyzes the film and its script scene-by-scene to show why Life is Beautiful is very far from being the innocent, charming, and heartwarming film it appears to be. The author argues that the film not only lends support to the central arguments of Holocaust deniers, but is actually a quasi-theological, Christian parable which seeks to justify the extermination of Jews in the 20th century as divine punishment for the sin of the crucifixion of Jesus two thousand years ago.

Kobi Niv is head of screenwriting studies at the Department of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University, and teaches scriptwriting at the Department of Communication Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and at the Film Department of the School of Arts at Beit Berl College.