REVIEW OF LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

REVIEW OF LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

            “Life Is Beautiful” is a wonderful film of 1997 directed and starred by Roberto Benigni. Benigni plays Guido Orefice, an Italian Jew who works in a library and who has to use his imagination in order to protect his young child from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. This film is partially based on the real experience of Rubino Romero Salmoni, one of the few Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust.

The film can be considered therefore as a tragicomedy, on the one hand there is the tragedy of the historical event and on the other hand, the funny way that Guido uses his imagination to distract and protect his child from the situation.   In my view, it’s understandable the “Life is beautiful” may generate controversy. After all, the nightmare of a Nazi concentration camp is difficult to portray through comedy. But Benigni exceeding all expectations, crafts a genuine film difficult to get over. The characters of Guido Orefice and his child, Giosuè Orefice, are the most successful and important, because they show us how the innocence of a child can change our point of view in dramatic moments of the film. Another very interesting point is how Guido divides his time between getting into troubles with the Fascists and attempting to court teacher Dora (Benigni’s real-life wife).

            In my opinion, this film is worth watching more that than once, because is a masterpiece of the cinema. It’s a film to make you cry and laugh at the same time and it has an historical background. I highly recommend it to watch with whoever you want.

Three events in my life

Three events in my life

There are many events that have had a big effect on me. Most of them are related to languages, because I love learning them so much and I also consider them as the key that opens the door to a new world, culture and customs. It’s for this reason that I’m going to mention three of these events in which languages will be present.

The first event that influenced me was the moment when I decided to study French for the first time in my life. I was about ten years old when my father said one day “Would you like to study French with me? It will be funny!”. At that moment, I was really excited about the idea of studying a new language, besides English obviously, so I accepted. My father taught me the language for two years until the big day arrived. He told me that he wanted us, my brother and I, to go to a French secondary school in Málaga. However, in spite of passing the entry exam, the school told us that we couldn’t be in the class we should be regarding our age, because we hadn’t studied there before and it would be difficult for us to adapt to their level. Anyway, it was a positive experience and I consider that now I know why my father wanted us to have this experience, which had a big impact on me.

Secondly, I’ll write about the moment when I passed my English and French B2 exams at the Official Language School in Motril at the same time. I was in the last year of the secondary school with all the exams of “Selectividad” (the exams to enter the university) and I also had to study for my language school exams. I was really busy at that time and I had to do fourteen exams in eleven days. The exams at the language school consisted of four parts (Listening, writing, oral expression and reading comprehension) and you would have to resit other exams in September if you failed any of the parts. As I expected I passed some parts in June and fortunately the rest, in September. These two weeks were two of the hardest weeks in my life and it’s for this reason that I included them in this list.

Last but not least I’ll write about my first day at university. For this event, I don’t know why, but I was really nervous. Like many students in my class, I don’t live in Granada, but the difference is that I live a bit farther from Granada. In my case I live in Motril with my family. Therefore, the fact that I had to take a coach every day to go to university was one of the reasons why I was so nervous: I didn’t know if I would arrive in time or if I would stop at the correct bus stop. Moreover, the university is not a secondary school and there is a big change between them.

I hope you liked my three stories. See you soon!

A real friend

A REAL FRIEND

It’s a well-known fact that in your life you will meet a lot of friends. However, not all these friends are going to be part of your life and not all of them will be forever. So, how can find “a real friend”? Do they exist?

In many countries having a good relation with your friends means that you’re a sociable person, and in Spain it also does. Nevertheless, more and more young people reckon that this fact is relates with social networks like Facebook or Twitter. That is to say, they think that having more “followers” on Twitter or more “friends” on Facebook, they’re more sociable and popular. And they’re totally wrong, because the majority of these “friends” don’t even know them.

Other people however, prefer having fewer friends, but with whom they are closer. They usually have a better relation with them and what is more important, they can do many things together: going to the cinema, playing a film… It’s true that if they lost them, because one of them goes abroad or they have an argument, they can end in a bad way, but in my view this is the best type of friendship.

In my case, I don’t reckon I have lots of friends, but I think that I can always trust them, so for me, it’s enough. Moreover, I could say that I have a real friend, because even if we are very different and he isn’t still at the university, we get on really well since nursery school, so I think that is the best way to know if you have a real friend.