Italian Cinema and culture Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Italian Cinema and culture - Research Paper Example The movie bicycle thief is about a struggling head of the family who is trying to fight for his family survival. Looks for a job and when a hope finally arrives and he are offered a job to distribute posters (Samuel & Olive 40). His means of moving to work, his bicycle is stolen by an unfamiliar young man. Antonio, the father hopes that the police would help get the thief, only to learn that they are not interested in the case since Antonio does not have any witnesses to help with the investigations. Opting to literary look for the thief in the streets of Rome Antonio faces many challenges and finally doesn’t succeed. The other film life is beautiful is based on the life of a family that struggles to live a happy life as a unit. They live on a ranch oblivious of the occurrences outside. The war continued (Benigin 200). They are seized by soldiers on the day of their son’s birthday and taken to a common prison. The father, Guido wants to protect his son, Giosue, who is o nly four and a half and very innocent. He gives him a fictional, but almost believable story of how the family has won a trip, and they have to perform some tasks to win the reward. Guido is very convincing with his explanation and uses it to protect the son from the terrifying realities of life in prison especially for a child who is that young and separated from his mother. In the end, Guido is executed but does not want Guisue to witness it, so he tells him to hide as part of the ‘game’. Guisue spots his mother Dora in the crowd of other female prisoners, and that’s how he starts to connect the disappearance of his father and the â€Å"game† and recalls of his statements of him sacrificing for his family (Bullaro 200). These two movies express the struggles of the community members in the post war Italy. The families were trying to remain happy and keeping the hope for a better day to come. Since they are based on partially true experiences of the main characters they are realistic to their lives, which area characterized by; poverty, oppression, injustice and desperation. Poverty In both films, the families are facing financial constrains and means for survival. For instance, in the Bicycle thieves, Antonio had even pawned his bicycle before this job offer came up. They have to give up their dowry bed sheets to the pawnbroker in order to recover it. When the bicycle is then stolen, and they report the case to the police no much concern is shown. Father and son having to walk to the city to look for the thief, they could not afford other means to get there (Samuel & Olive 100). These scenes demonstrate the poverty of the urban Italian community at that time with most of them being unemployed and have to rely on odd job. For instance, Lamberto Maggirani, the character who played Antonio in the movie was a construction worker and the film reflected his actual life and the state of financial lack. The film was shot on location theref ore appearance of the characters on it reflects how they live. The small boy was real son. In life is beautiful, the head of the family could not raise enough money to afford his young family a home the end up being hosted at uncle’s ranch. The son believes the story that they had won a trip because to him the family rarely traveled away from home. This was a new experience (Benigin 200). He even believes that