Monday, April 16, 2012

10th Blog Post

For leisure tourists and travelers, a trip to Italy is more like an escape from daily life. They seek to encounter an exotic culture and gain new experience. For immigrants, however, travelling to Italy is a journey of hope and hardships. In I was an Elephant Salesman, the narrator described travelling to Italy as a moment “when our lives will change, when we will have to use our brains, our arms, and the money that we have saved or borrowed” (15). To immigrants, Italy is a place where they may be able to change their lives and escape poverty. However, in order to create that new life they will have to abandon their family, their home and everything they are familiar with and strive through hardships they have never encountered before.

Monday, April 9, 2012

9th Blog Post

 Discuss the desperation that characterizes Amelio's portrait of contemporary Albanian migration to Italy.  How do scenes of immigration in Lamerica compare with cinematic representations of leisure travel to Italy?


Lamerica provides a new insight into travel in Italy, portraying Italy as a land of not only dreams and adventure but also hardships. In cinematic representations of leisure travel to Italy, everything in Italy seems like a rosy dream; Lucy in A Room with a View finds true love and freedom; the Princess in Roman Holiday runs away and instead of being harassed by reporters manages to make one fall in love with her. In Lamerica, however, shows that traveling for life in Italy is dark and bleak. People are harshly treated and are in such bad conditions that even young dies.