Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore

Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore probably was the longest movie that I have ever watched, which talks about the flashing back of a famous Italian director, Salvatore, the main character in this movie. Salvatore flashes back to his childhood when he gets to know that someone named Alfredo has died.

Salvatore’s childhood time is after World War II when movie is a precious entertainment for the folk villages. People of all ages are obsessed with the cinema and would spend their time watching the film in the theatre. During those times, people don’t have television or high-technology thing, therefore, they cherish the moment when they watch the film and cinema has become a wonder for them.

Salvatore who is a very intelligent kid, loves the projectionist job so much that he always sneak into the projector room and watch how the projectionist, Alfredo operates the film projector. There is one time the projector room catches fire because of the highly flammable film, Salvatore saves Alfredo’s life but since then Alfredo becomes a blind man. Later on, Salvatore takes over the projectionist job and never get bored of what he is doing. As time goes by, Alfredo treats him like his own son, spending his time with him.

When Salvatore turns into a teen, he falls in love with a daughter of a wealthy banker, Elena. Unfortunately, it does not last long because of his military service and he is unable to reach her. And when he returns from military service, Alfredo asks him to go pursue his dreams and never come back, and never contact them.

Eventually, he has become a successful director. He later come back to his hometown to attend Alfredo’s funeral. What surprised me is the ending part of the movie, Alfredo actually hide something from him that Elena did contacted him but he never pass him the messages. However, looking back the town and people who are familiar, he understands Alfredo’s thoughts and Alfredo presents him a film reel which contains all the cutting scenes of kissing.

Life is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni

Life is beautiful which directed, written and acted by Roberto Benigni, is a very interesting comedy movie. It is an Italian movie, thanks to the subtitles, I managed to watch a fantastic movie which titled as “Best Foreign Language Film”. I found out Roberto Benigni has a good sense of humor, he actually acted as a comical and kind Jewish man.

Roberto Benigni acted as Guido Orefice in this movie, who falls in love with the school teacher, Dora. In the beginning of the movie, his humor act already shown which Guido pretends himself to be a member of the National Fascist Party. He explains his funny theories about the racist topic and jumps onto the table, shows his bellybutton to the students. Sooner, he is married with Dora and has a son named Joshua.

However, happiness does not last long. On Joshua’s fifth birthday, Guido and Joshua are taken for the concentration camp because of Jewish. Dora later insists follow them to the camp because she does not want to leave her family behind. I find out the Holocaust to the Jews is very cruel and inhuman. Despite the cruelty and terrible condition, Guido still managed to show his humor to his son, telling him that they are actually playing a game, the grand prize is a tank, which Joshua always wanted to get it. Moreover, he uses many tricks, telling Joshua not to cry or not to seen by others, just to avoid Joshua being executed by the soldiers. Fortunately, Joshua thinks it is a real game. What I feel touch is, whenever Joshua feel like giving up, Guido will tell him funny things and makes Joshua thinks that it is a fun game and it is worth for staying.

Though in the end of the movie, Guido is killed by the soldier. But he managed to make Joshua stay till the end and Joshua thinks that he really won the game and being escorted by the tank, who is American soldiers.

Roberto reversed a bad situation to a whimsical love story. I truly admire his humor and optimism.

Parenthood by Ron Howard

The movie portrays the different parenting styles displayed by different parents. Parenting style is very important because it affects the future of the family, parenting style is not by learning or a skill, it is how a person spread the values to the next generation. In this movie, there are four different parents acted in the different way.

The first parents, Gil Buckman and Karen Buckman, who are the main highlight in the movie. Gil and Karen are using authoritative parenting style where they expect their children to follow their guidelines and rules. Gil has a very unhealthy childhood times where his father always dumps him alone, he thinks that he will not let his children to have such childhood times as him. So, he learns to be more responsible towards his kids, bringing them to watch the match and also listen to what his children thinks. However, they face challenges when they find out that their elder son, Kevin actually has emotional problems and his teacher suggests him to take the special education. Gil tries to help his son by helping him to build confidence and trust in front of Kevin’s friends. Though the problems keep coming out when the emotion of Kevin becomes more severe.

Gil’s sister, Helen is a divorced parent who has an elder daughter and a son. Helen is a indulgent parent who acting in permissive parenting style towards her children. Such parenting style allows children to behave self-indulgent and no discipline. It can be seen in Helen’s elder daughter, Julie, she dislike study and loves her boyfriend so much. While Gary, Helen’s son, is quiet and likes to be alone in his room. Helen has no control or demand with them, which leads them to become “spoilt” kids. Helen faces the challenges where Julie has a relationship with her boyfriend and gets pregnant, while Gary locks himself in the room.

On the other hand, Gil’s another sister, Susan, who is a teacher married to a man who is an intelligent scientist, Nathan. In this movie, authoritarian style can be seen in this married couples, Nathan behaves very tense and high demanding towards his daughter, Patty. Despite of Susan who eagerly to get another children, Nathan puts entire expectation on Patty, he thinks that they need to have full focus on Patty in order to develop her into a perfect person in the future. However, it makes Patty develops anti-social behavior where her maturity is different with the same age of children. Besides, it affects Patty’s childhood moment when she can only be obedient and do what his dad wants.

Lastly, another parenting style which can be seen in “Parenthood” is uninvolved parenting approach. This kind of parents, totally ignore the needs of the children, which is the same as Larry, Gil’s youngest brother. Larry is being low responsive to his son, Cool. He barely talks to him and Cool is always taking care by Larry’s father. In this case, Cool has becomes more emotionally withdrawn from social situations.

I am not going to say which parenting style is right or wrong, but I personally think that one should interpret appropriate parenting style depending on the situation, not just follow blindly in order to provide a better future for the next generation.

Departures by Yojiro Takita | Grace is Gone by James C. Strouse

This time we were exposed to two movies which were kind of sad and grief, “Departures” by Yojiro Takita and “Grace is Gone” by James C. Strouse. I hate to say but I did cried during the showing of movies. It involved high emotional content that caused anger, anxiety, depression and grief.

Of “Departures” movie, the movie talks about the main character, Daigo, who loses his job and he moves back to his hometown with his wife, Mika. He then finds a job through newspaper which he thought it is an travel agency company, turns out it is about undertaker which has to deal with the corpses. He forces to accept the job because he needs money. However, when he first sees his boss, Sasaki preparing the dead, the way he does it, he feels amazed and respectful of him. As time goes by, he starts to handle his job and does not feel humiliated anymore. He gains a sense of fulfillment after each time the ceremony done for the grieving families. In Japan, the preparation of burial is important because it symbolizes another stage of deceased. Although applying makeup is not beneficial to the decreased, but it actually serves as a last wish or last meeting with families. In this movie, it involved a lot of high emotions that the grieving families during the burial ceremony, they get emotional when they see their beloved’s dead bodies.

“Grace is Gone” movie portrays about a man, Stanley, who just get the news of his wife, who is a soldier, has died during the duty and he has to tell the death news to his two daughters. Stanley thinks that his two daughters may not have the capacity to handle the shocking news because he himself also has a hard time to get through it. However, he tries his best not to show any negative emotion in front of his daughters, even his elder daughter, Heidi notices there is something wrong with him. Stanley brings hid two daughters to Enchanted Garden, which takes a few days out of the sudden without notify school and work. In this part, we can see that Stanley is hardly control his own behaviours, what he concerns is only how to tell his daughters about their mother’s death. In the end, he tells the death news to daughters on the way back to home, after a long day play in Enchanted Garden by the seaside. The girls cry in grief.

I personally think that funeral is a important ceremony for everyone in the families, because it is the last respect and meeting with the deceased. Even though it is a highly stressful event but people feel better and spiritually healing from the grief, because they have done the last part for the deceased and bring the deceased to another stage. I understand the loss of the beloved and I personally think that we should cherish what we have, spend more time with family before we regret.

When A Man Loves A Woman by Luis Mandoki

At first, when I first saw the title of “When A Man Loves A Woman”, I thought it would be another typical romance film. However, it has changed my view when the movie showing after the story after marriage of both characters, Alice and Michael.  The movie portrays the wife who is an alcoholic, and how they deal with the problems.

Alice and Michael fall in love with each other at the first sight when they have met each other in the restaurant. The movie changed the timeline to the life of after marriage of them later on. Michael is an airline pilot and Alice is a school counselor, they have two lovely daughters and they live happily together. Owing to the pilot schedule, Alice has to spend most of the time at home and she feels very lonely. Her addiction to alcohol never stops that she needs to drink every day once she gets up and even driving. In the movie, it can be seen that Alice was experiencing depression when she shouted and yelled at her helper, Amy. She drank the Vodka with aspirin and when her elder daughter, Jess talked to her, she slapped her right in her face. Jess was afraid and shocked of her mother’s behavior. Then she smashed herself on the shower door and passed out right away.

Michael, on the other hand, is a responsible and caring husband and father. Even he knew his flying schedules may affect the time he could spend with his family, he still managed to have gateways with Alice. During the recovery of Alice, he showed his love to her. He played the big role in the family, when Alice trying to take over her role in taking care of the daughters, he feel threatened because he has used to be the role of a caretaker.

Alice has went through the rehabilitation of alcoholism. The recovery process is hard, that she has developed another attitude to compensate for the lack of alcohol. However in the end of the movie, she finally gets rid of the alcohol’s addiction.

I personally think that the movie portray well how an alcoholic lives and how an alcoholic deals with it and recovers from it.

Chariots of Fire by Hugh Hudson

Chariots of Fire by Hugh Hudson is another inspiring movie which talks about the motivation and how two men fight for their own glory in the 1924 Olympics. The movie focuses on two main character, Eric Liddel, a Scottish Christian and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew. Both are runners and the movie portrays the way both runners train themselves to achieve their goals in Olympics.

Let’s talk about both main characters. Liddel’s parents are Scottish missionary who based in China. His sister always not agree of what he’s doing, competitive running. However, what Liddel thinks is, he thinks that running is a way of glorifying God, he wishes to run in Olympics before he back to China. On the other hand, Abrahams, who is a Jewish Englishman, desperately wish to prove himself to the world, to overcome prejudice towards Jewish. Both of them run not only for their dignity, but also for their religions.

Abrahams once run with Liddel and Liddel beats him. Abrahams is very upset till he met Mussabini, a professional trainer. In this movie, it shows the equal stories of how Liddel and Abrahams train themselves for the coming Olympics. What I found out is their training methods are totally different. Liddel is trained by himself, he simply use up his entire strength and passion and run, without any assist. Whereas Abrahams is trained by Mussabini, he taught him on how to run with tactics.

Though both of the main characters have met the difficulties during the training period for Olympics. Abrahams is being questioned of using professional coach, as it is not a right thing to employ a professional coach to train him for the run. Abrahams argues his points that this has to be changed. Meanwhile, Liddel who is putting all his efforts on the coming run for Olympics, is being doubted by his sister. His sister thinks that he has changed and he is no longer has passion on his mission. Liddel confronts his sister that this is the only way he could feel the God. He says, “I believe that God made me for a purpose. But He also made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure.”

Both runners have place their commitment, devotion, sacrifice throughout the movie and I am being motivated by their passion.