Life Is Beautiful

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Karla Suarez Cadena World Studies Movie project “Life is beautiful” Resume: The first half of the movie is a whimsical, romantic, somewhat slapstick comedy set in the years before World War II. Guido Orefice, a young Italian Jew, arrives in Arezzo, where he plans to set up a bookstore, taking a job as a waiter at his uncle's hotel. Guido is both funny and charismatic, especially when he romances a local school teacher, Dora (portrayed by Benigni's actual wife, saying she is beautiful like the morning sunrise. Dora, however, comes from a wealthy, aristocratic, non-Jewish Italian family. Dora's mother wants her to marry a well-to-do civil servant, but Dora falls instead for Guido where he ends up stealing her away at her engagement party from her aristocratic and arrogant fiancé. Several years pass in which Guido and Dora marry and have a son, Giosuè. Dora and her mother are estranged due to the unequal marriage. Later on, a reconciliation takes place just prior to Giosuè's fourth birthday. In the second half of the film, World War II has already begun. Guido, Uncle Eliseo and Giosuè are forced onto a train and taken to a concentration camp on Giosuè's birthday. Despite being a non-Jew, Dora demands to be on the same train to join her family and is permitted to do so. In the camp, Guido hides his son from the Nazi guards, sneaks him food and tries to humor him. In an attempt to keep up Giosuè's spirits, Guido convinces him that the camp is just a game, in which the first person to get 1,000 points wins a tank. He tells him that if he cries, complains that he wants his mother or says that he is hungry, he will lose points, while quiet boys who hide from the camp guards earn points. Guido convinces Giosuè that the camp guards are mean because they want the tank for themselves and that all the other children are hiding in order to win the game. He puts off
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