Life Is Beautiful (1979 film)

Life Is Beautiful
Life Is Beautiful
Directed by	Grigory Chukhray
Written by	Giovanni Fago; Augusto Caminito; Grigory Chukhray; Gianfranco Clerici
Starring	Giancarlo Giannini; Ornella Muti; Stefano Madia; Enzo Fiermonte; Luigi Montini
Cinematography	Mikhail Bits; Luigi Kuveiller
Music by	Armando Trovajoli
Production; companies	Mosfilm, Quattro Cavalli Cinematografica, RAI
Distributed by	Variety Distribution

Life Is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella, Russian: Жизнь прекрасна, romanized: Zhizn prekrasna, also known as Betrayed) is a 1979 Italian-Soviet romantic drama directed by Grigory Chukhray.^[1]^[2]

Plot

The action takes place in an unnamed country (in foreign versions of the film the country is Portugal during Salazar's reign), ruled by a military junta which violently suppresses any free thought. Antonio Murillo is a former military pilot who was dismissed from the army for refusing to sink a ship loaded with refugees. Now he drives a taxi and periodically becomes a witness to the despotism of the authorities. His girlfriend Mary, waitress, is a member of an underground movement fighting against the dictatorship. Antonio, for all his dislike of the junta is not interested in politics, his dream is to save money and to become a pilot again, and to own a private plane. But once he drives a man on his taxi, who turns out to be on the side of the opposition. This causes him to come to the attention of the special services. Because of that provocateur he ends up going to prison, where there are several members of the underground and ends up subjected to torture. Through ingenuity and mechanic skills he manages to save the life of underground fighters, disrupting the arranged provocation caused by the warden, and then organize an escape from prison. Together with Maria, Antonio in a stolen taxi gets away from the police, and then uses a hijacked plane to leave the country.

Cast

Giancarlo Giannini: Antonio Murillo
Ornella Muti: Maria
Stefano Madia: Paco
Enzo Fiermonte: Maria's uncle
Luigi Montini: episode
Regimantas Adomaitis: investigator Perez (voiced by Vadim Spiridonov)
Otar Koberidze: Alvarado (voiced by Vladimir Druzhnikov)
Juozas Budraitis: Gomes
Yevgeni Lebedev: Rostao
Stanislav Chekan: prisoner
Igor Yasulovich: prisoner
Mikhail Remizov: Osario

References

^ Roberto Chiti; Roberto Poppi; Enrico Lancia. Dizionario del cinema italiano: I film. Gremese, 1991. ISBN 8876059350.
^ Martin Connors; Jim Craddock (August 1999). VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever 2000. Visible Ink Press, 1999. ISBN 1578590426.