The Book of Life

Creator: Marco Lui
Age rating: Everyone
"The Book of Life" tells the story of a teacher searching for a love that he found before he was born".
It's not a comedy, but it makes people smile. It's not a drama, but it gives people teary eyes. It's not poetic, but it lets people dream.
Full synopsis
Synopsis: In a magic and fantastic world (prexistence), that is the world where the souls of all men are born before coming to this earth, in a typical fairytale world house, a mysterious middle-aged man, with deep, penetrating, sweet and appealing eyes, gathers around a crackling fireplace several children, to tell them a story, the circle of life. The children are all dressed in white, they emanate sympathy and joy. The little spirits hang from his lips in the moment when he starts the story:
“Many, many years ago, in an enchanted place, lived the spirits of all men, each of them with their own aspirations. Everyone of this spirits had the opportunity to learn and to develop their talents, according to the desires of their hearts: in this way they were preparing to go to earth. Among those spirits there was a sympathyc and funny boy, whose simple but important aspiration was to become, once on earth, a school teacher. So, from the spirits’ headmaster, he was sent in a very weird school where he was going to learn how to be a good teacher. All the exercises they made him do seemed to him but useless and meaningless, and that they had little to do with teaching. For this reason, Marco, (the protagonist), day after day wondered about the meaning of all this.Going every day to these places, on the little street he was walking on with a friend, he passed by the school for aspiring music teachers, led by a “certain” Mozart. Among his students, a fantastic girl of amazing beauty, hit just with the look in her eyes the heart of Marco…The girl was serious and behaved, the type that never lost her cool or easily gave away non even a smile to anyone. Even though this, she was of an extraordinary sweetness and on the earth she wanted to become a good music teacher. Marco’s friend told him that if he wanted to win her love, he had to make her laugh, task in which no one had ever succeeded before. Thus Marco, very awkwardly but in an entertaining way for the public, does anything to win her love. She shows herself a bit distant, indifferent and cold to these awkward attempts, and every time she keeps playing a melody on the piano, that does nothing but increasing Marco’s love for her. Our protagonist can’t make her laugh, but every time he leaves a small and simple flower on the piano for her, as a compliment to her beauty. This daily small act slowly makes an impression on her, which day after day hopes to see Marco on the horizon and to receive that small and simple flower. It becomes an essential appointment, even though the girl gives no signs of this feeling.
However the day for our protagonist to go to earth comes suddenly and unexpected, exactly as it happens for human death. Marco’s tutor doesn’t even give him the time to say goodbye to the girl, but reassures him that he would only be away for thirty years. This way Marco is happy to come back soon, not knowing that on earth thirty years make a short life and that he is going to lose every recollection of this spirit-world. The last picture that we’re left with of heaven is her, looking with her eyes for the hilarious appearance of the teacher on the horizon, with a small tear that lonely crosses her face.



In a countryside road, the shape and the appearance of a Thirty years old man reveals his identity: a teacher that is heading to school to teach for his first day. In his Jacket’s pocket he has a small flower, familiar to the public. Along this road he comes across a little girl that with an angry face heads to the opposite direction: she’s a very nice little girl that didn’t want to go to school because that day a new teacher would have come. Marco, the teacher, after a few attempts to convince her to go to school, suddenly has an idea: with really comic and funny movements, fakes like his legs had their own personality and that they are going where they like and bend up and down as they please. The little girl was having a great time and a bit persuaded by these funny tricks decides to go to school. But the interesting thing is that the public will recognize in that trick of the teacher, the meaningless exercises to which he assisted in heaven. In heaven Marco, though he doesn’t have a recollection of it, did not learn the notions, but the social skills needed to become a good teacher. His lessons at school with the children, will always be funny and irresistible, but will also be a prefiguration of events about to happen. In the school he teaches there’s a very beautiful music teacher that yet never laughs. Nevertheless, their meeting is full of emotion, because in some way they recognize something familiar, especially when he gives her a flower and when she plays a deeply sweet familiar music, which touches the strings of their feelings and evokes in their minds undefined memories. The school’s administrator, counsels him that if he wants to win her heart he has to make her laugh. One of the most emotional, but also comic, moments of the film is, when finally for the first time she gives him a smile. It will be like the first warm and colored sunbeam after an icy, grey and cold winter. Thus thinking that “the more I make her laugh, the more she’ll be mine”, the protagonist ruins a couple of romantic situations turning them into situations of humor. This, after a while, irritates the girl: there’s a time for everything, you can’t always ruin the magic of romantic moments with a laugh. After a few loving corrections and discussions, she loses all hope and leaves him, right when Marco for some reason, ends up at the hospital.
Without being able to see each other again, he dies and will go back to the place where he’s from. But he leaves her a letter. In the letter is written that in reality he never wanted to make her laugh, rather he wanted to make her avoid sufferance: in fact we’ll find out that he had a sickness of his nervous system of which no one was aware, that caused him tremors and convulsions that he tried to hide turning those movement so difficult to accept into comic situations: yet not to hide a self humiliation, but to not let the woman he loved see him in these conditions, not for himself but for her, to leave her with a good memory.
Here’s the key of everything, that deceives both her and the public, and that makes the whole filled with emotion. (It seems very tragic, but it is not yet dealt with in such a moving way, but it rather gives hope to those that really live these situations and adds a deep sense of the meaning of life).

How it will end? This is a surprise also for you.

Latest Work

  • Trailer 2 - Comedy, poetry, mix...
    01/20/12
    Creative Notes:
    "The Book of Life" tells the story of a teacher searching for a love that he found before he was born".
    Is a kind of fantastic and touching story.
    Is not a comedy, but it makes people laugh. Is not a drama, but it gives people teary eyes. Is not poetic, but it makes people dream.
  • Test Movie 1 - Re-edit
    02/21/11

All Work

  • Trailer 1 - Comedy, poetry, mix...
    01/20/12
    Creative Notes:
    Is a movie with different level of narration, so that eachone can have something to find: a child a smile, an adult deep thougt...and it explain to the young, and ex-young, about the death. All with a comedian acting, but also touching...