Life is Beautiful (indeed).

Life is Beautiful (Italian: La vita è bella) is an Italian language film which tells the story of a Jewish Italian, Guido Orefice (played by Roberto Benigni, who also directed and co-wrote the film) who tries to help his son, Joshua, survive in the Nazi concentration camp by using his rich imagination. This film has been dubbed to Italian-accented English, perhaps due to its popularity. It also won the Academy Award for the Best Actor, Best Music, Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

The first half of the film basically introduces the main characters of the story. It is set in the World War II period when Nazi's spirit was overwhelming all over Europe. Young charismatic Guido comes from his hometown to Rome to earn a better living. There he works as a waiter in his uncle's restaurant. In the same restaurant, he steals Dora, who later becomes his wife, from his fiance at their engagement party. The couple finally gets married and lives peacefully with their son Joshua. The plot starts to get tense as Guido, Joshua and Guido's uncle are ordered to join the Jewish concentration camp. Being non-Jewish, Dora is not sent to the concentration camp but she insists on joining her family. She is then allowed, but has to be separated from the rest because males and females go to different camps.

The second half of the film, and also the most touching part, tells the story of Guido and Joshua surviving the concentration camp. Not wanting to let his son down, Guido creates an imaginative story whereby all people in the concentration camp are in a big game to collect a thousand points to win a tank. The points get reduced from one’s point bank if he/she complains for hunger and points are earned if he/she stays quiet and hides from the guard. He convinces Joshua that the guards are so mean that they want to keep the big prize for themselves. Guido also persuades his son to not withdraw from the game by telling him that other children are close to getting a thousand points and he will regret not competing for the tank. The fact that Guido is so convincing, together with Joshua’s innocence, makes the latter questions no more about the suffering of people in the concentration camp.

In the chaos caused by the American advance drawing near, Guido asks his son to stay still in a sweatbox – one final challenge before the tank becomes his. Meanwhile, Guido is trying to rescue Dora. He is caught by the Nazi guards and shot dead. Joshua manages to survive and thinks that he wins the tank. He is also reunited with his mother when the concentration camps are liberated by the American soldiers.

Life is Beautiful is full of funny moments, thanks to the excellent acting of Roberto Benigni. The second half of the film is surprisingly both touching and funny. For big fans of classical music, this film is definitely a must-see. The main music played throughout the film is Belle Nuit by Offenbach. I have watched this film three times, and am never bored watching it and will watch it again if I have time. I strongly recommend the film and two thumbs up for this film!

Problem-Solution

Conflicts are often unavoidable within an organization. In a family, a simple form of an organization, conflicts may arise between family members. The cause to this is likely to be the uncontrollable ego of one individual or a group whose members share a common perspective. Individual family members may assert different needs which may not be compatible with the needs of the family as a whole. One example is the desires of emotionally-immature teenage children that may disrupt the family’s orderliness, such as the desire to own the latest gadgets. The funds, on the other hands, could be used for fulfilling more crucial family needs. The children thus feel their needs are abandoned. Such a clash can be resolved by parents – the supposedly more emotionally intelligent – giving advices to develop the children’s emotional intelligence. Competition amongst family members in extended families is another frequently-occurring case. This usually happens after a most-respected family member departs. The problem can be solved by understanding what one’s own rights and obligations are, as well as others’. To sum up, conflicts in an organization can be solved by cultivating emotional intelligence.

Cause Effect

Lack of emotional intelligence might bring subsequent effects within a community. The very first symptom of this phenomenon is the widely-spread prejudice between groups of different races, ideologies and beliefs. Consequently, intolerance is slowly built up within the community. The last stage of the chain reaction is embodied in a visible action: the act of discrimination, which in extreme cases can take many forms, such as sweeping, terrorism, genocide and civil war. For example, after the 9/11 attack, people throughout the world, including Australia, have become highly prejudiced towards the Muslims. Starting with undesirable gestures, such as exchanging glares between the Westerners and the Middle-Eastern-look, the clash peaked in the racist riot in Sydney in 2005 which was as well triggered by media provocation. With this example, it may be possible to draw a conclusion that vulnerability to external provocation, a form of lack of emotional intelligence, may cause harmony disruption in the community.

Comparison & Contrast

Emotional intelligence plays an important role in different professions to different extent. An engineer and a kindergarten teacher, for example, both need distinct levels of emotional intelligence when dealing with their respective job scopes. As commonly required by other professions, a successful engineer and kindergarten teacher must be creative, well-organized and socially savvy in order to interact with their colleagues. A kindergarten teacher, however, is expected to be more emotionally intelligent than an engineer due to his/her constant interaction with children of a fairly young age. A good kindergarten teacher must understand well the psychology of children of different characters. Mood management, one aspect of emotional intelligence according to Daniel Goleman, is of great importance when encountering with distracted or misbehaving children. Showing inappropriate actions to express emotions to his/her students may bring negative effects to them as children learn a lot from their role models. Despite having to possess high self-motivation, another aspect of emotional intelligence, in order to complete tasks on time, an engineer, on the other hand, deals with physical devices , most of the time; thus making the job require less control of emotions. To sum all up, emotional intelligence is required in both professions although it is used more in one profession – kindergarten teacher – than it is in the other – engineer – due to the intense interaction with children.