(CNN) When "Life is Beautiful" was released in the United States in 1998, I wasn't as wild about the movie as many others were. I appreciated the tone of director/co-writer/star Roberto Benigni's film about a father shielding his young son from the horrors of a concentration camp, the premise seemed a trifle strained and sanitized. In the movie, Benigni's character, Guido, goes to extraordinary lengths to convince his boy that navigating life under the Nazis is actually all an elaborate game. The narrator, Guido's grown son, looking back describes his dad's imaginative creation of that ruse as "his gift to me." Roberto Benigni (front) in 'Life is Beautiful.'

Source: CNN March 20, 2020 15:56 UTC