Life Is Beautiful Essay, Research Paper

Life is Beautiful

The cultural event that I chose to do was watching the movie Life is Beautiful. It was a very good movie, but it was also very sad. The movie is set during World War II in Italy and is about a man named Guido. The movie starts out while Guido and his friend, Ferruccio, go to Guido s Uncle Leo s house in Venice. While he is in Venice he keeps running into a teacher named Dora; he has a crush on her. He pretends to be an inspector from Rome to get into the school to see her. He is a waiter in a hotel and one night he has to cater Dora s engagement party. He then rides in on a horse and takes her away. The next thing that is shown is them with a young son, Joshua. One day Dora comes home and finds that her home has been trashed and Guido, Joshua, and Uncle Leo have been taken away.

It then goes to the men on truck being transported to a concentration camp. Guido is telling Joshua that they are going on a trip for his birthday. Then they switch to a train, and Dora stops the train so that she can get on and be with her family. When they get there Guido tells Joshua that the whole thing is a big game and that the person who gets 1000 points first wins a real tank. Throughout the whole movie Guido never says anything pessimistic in front of Joshua. He sends Dora messages by sneaking and getting on the intercom and talking to her and by playing music out a window to her. In the end, the war is ending and Guido is trying to get to Dora. The army catches him and even as he is being led away he pretends that it is a game for Joshua s sake. He tells him before that they have won the tank. Then next morning all of the soldiers are gone and Joshua comes out of hiding and some American soldiers in a tank pick him up and take him to his Dora.

I chose to watch this movie because I had wanted to watch it for quite a while and since I was pretty much snowed in, I did not have much of a choice. I really learned a lot about the Holocaust and concentration camps. I also learned about the unconditional love that parents have for their children. This movie really made me think about how truly awful World War II was. I never knew how hard the men had to work to stay alive. I would recommend this movie to anyone.