Eat Drink Man Woman: A Masterpiece of Subtleties

Eat Drink Man Woman poster from IMDb

My first thought at the end of Eat Drink Man Woman was this:

WHAT'S HAPPENING???

The director for the film, Ang Lee, did a fantastic job at the storytelling of the movie plot. I think the movie was really memorable because of the portrayal of subtleties in the movie. Let's start with the movie plot. Ang Lee has shown tremendous expertise by using subtle cues to 'hint' to the audience of what might happen next. At first, the plot twists in the movie seemed like it was quite unexpected, but upon reflection, the unexpected turns in some scenes did not derail from the movie plot. Ang Lee didn't decide to drop one bombshell after another for no apparent reason. When I begin reflecting back on the entire storyline from the beginning, I realised that the surprising scenes that caught everyone off guard at first were still connected to the plot, and the unfolding of these scenes were done through small details that can only be realised through scrutiny of everything that's happening within each frame of the movie. This is what makes Ang Lee a storytelling maestro.

Well, I can safely say that (almost) the entire class would agree that the biggest bombshell that Ang Lee has dropped in this movie was **HUGE SPOILER ALERT!**  that Mr Chu, the father of the three daughters, hooked up with Jin-Rong, the young daughter of Mrs. Liang. Many in the audience would have thought that Mr Chu would finally end up with Mrs. Liang in a romantic relationship by the way that Ang Lee portrayed Mr Chu's relationship with Mrs. Liang, where they are always seen together with Mrs. Liang always having a conversation with Mr Chu. In my opinion I think the reason why Mr Chu's announcement of a relationship with Jin-Rong came as a big surprise was because of the audience's schema or fixed mental set they have towards romantic relationships amongst the elderly; we think that if an old person were to find a partner, their partner should be in their age range as well. This train of thought is perpetuated by the scene where Mrs. Liang was eagerly asking her daughter Jin-Rong on which dress to wear to the reunion dinner with everyone where Mr Chu made his announcement, so scenes of Mrs. Liang having private conversations with Mr Chu and her excitement going to the dinner scripted the idea of Mrs. Liang hooking up with Mr Chu in the audience's heads, giving the audience a huge shocker when their expectations were proven to be wrong at the end.

The stories of the development of the romance of each of Mr Chu's three daughters, and the focus of the familial bond between Mr Chu and his daughters in a way became subtle diversions to Mr Chu's final announcement as well. As the story first began with a cold scene between the daughters and Mr Chu at the dinner table, the audience may be primed to think that the movie will be focused on familial ties. While the movie does talk about familial ties, the plot shows the transition from a cold, drifting family relationship to a more open and warm family bond, which is catalysed by the romantic relationship of Mr Chu's eldest daughter, Jia-Jen, and the youngest daughter, Jia-Ning. Both Jia-Jen's and Jia-Ning's announcement of their relationship as the movie progresses was ironic as the family relationship seemed to have strengthened after both of them left their family home to stay with their husbands. In the reunion dinner where Mr Chu made his announcement, the dinner table seemed to be more atmospheric and livelier with the added number of people on the table. As the audience was so focused on the progress of the romantic relationship of each sister, they didn't pay as much as focus on Mr Chu, hence they didn't pay as much attention to the development of Mr Chu's romantic relationship as compared to the relationships of his daughters. Although scenes between Mr Chu and Mrs Liang were hinting at a possible romance between the two, it was not as interesting as the romance between Jia-Ning and Guo Lun, Jia-Jen and Zhou Mingdao, and Jia-Chien and Li Kai. This made Mr Chu's even more shocking when the audience s forced to pay attention to Mr Chu's romantic relationship announcement in the end.

Moving on from the plot, the subtleties in the storyline leading up to Mr Chu's announcement was what made Mr Chu's announcement so impactful to me as well. Subtle details that Ang Lee used repeatedly also made a huge impact in me as it made the storytelling more powerful in terms of the feelings and emotions that he was trying to convey to the audience. For example, I noticed that whenever scenes involving Mr Chu's family's house was shown, it was always raining, UNTIL the last scene when the plot fast-forwarded many years after Mr Chu's announcement, showing Mr Chu returning to his family home to have dinner with his second daughter, Jia-Chien. This time, it was not raining when the scene with the family house was shown. This could be Ang Lee's subtle way of using rain to symbolise the turmoil within the family; the thunderstorm that happens every time scenes with the family house is shown may symbolize something big is looming which will test the bond of Mr Chu's family. Thunderstorms were shown when Jia-Ning, Jia-Jen and Mr Chu made the announcement of their romantic relationships at the dinner table, signifying big news that will make a dent in the family relationship. The absence of rain in the scene where Mr Chu returns to the family home to have dinner with Jia-Chien may symbolise that perhaps family ties are finally restored, and the bond between Mr Chu and Jia-Chien is much closer than before.

Another subtle detail in the movie that was obvious to me was the bond that Mr Chu shared with his lifelong friend, Uncle Wen. The subtle detail here is that Mr Chu's sense of taste that signifies support and a close relationship. Mr Chu is always asking Uncle Wen to taste his cooking as he claims that his taste buds were 'dying' and he can't taste food as good as before. When Uncle Wen passed away, Mr Chu exclaimed that his taste buds were gone. This symbolises the close bond that Mr Chu had with Uncle Wen, and that his taste buds was actually the close bond that Mr Chu shares with Uncle Wen. When Uncle Wen has passed on, his one source of comfort and close ties were gone, hence his exclamation that his taste buds disappeared. What struck me was that Mr Chu said that his sense of taste has returned at the very end of the movie when he ate Jia-Chien's cooking. This could mean that Mr Chu has finally regained another close bond and support, this time with his second daughter Jia-Chien.

To wrap things up, food has played a central theme symbolising relationships based on the major scenes that have occurred; when food is shown, there were huge scenes like announcement of hookups, to symbolic representations of the sense of taste. Ang Lee certainly has given us audience a food for thought (pun very much intended), on using creativity to make associations between concrete objects and abstract concepts.

Seriously, I would love to watch this movie again! :)

Awakenings - A Story of Growth and Learning

Awakenings movie poster from IMP Awards

Awakenings is a movie that's critically-acclaimed for a good reason; not only was the execution of the plot amazing, it had a magical feel in the way the plot rolls out, in terms of its cinematography and how the casts portray their characters.

What caught my eye the most was Robin Williams' character, Dr. Malcolm Sayer. Dr. Sayer's character is interesting to watch on screen because of the transition of his character from someone who was a professor researching plants with minimal human relationships, to a well-respected doctor in the Bronx Hospital where he's working, as well as forming a close relationship with the nurse in his neurology department, Eleanor Costello. Theories of attraction (from a psychological perspective, not a physics one!) may be able to explain the increase in amount of human relationships that Dr. Sayer has. One of the factors catalysing Dr. Sayer's attraction to other humans could be due to familiarity. By being in contact with another person for a duration of time, a person will develop a form of attraction to the other person. Immediately on Dr. Sayer's first day of work, he had a 180-degree shift from his previous work's lifestyle as he was constantly exposed to people in his neurology department, or infamously known as 'The Garden'. As Dr. Sayer starts interacting with his colleagues and patients, he becomes increasingly fond of them, resulting in him having close relationships with Eleanor, and his patient, Leonard. They were considered to be Dr. Sayer's first friends.

Despite his awkward relationships with other people in the beginning of the movie, Dr. Sayer was also a man who is passionate in his job. For example, Dr. Sayer's love for his research of plants led him to collect mountains of books in his home, and also keeping his plant samples in his refrigerator. At his most recent job as a neurologist, Dr. Sayer found a new purpose in his job, which was finding a cure for his post-encephalitis patients that are catatonic. He became adamant on finding a cure for his patients' conditions upon discovering that his first patient, Lucy, showed a physical response by catching her glasses when Dr. Sayer threw the glasses towards her, a first sign of movement since her and the other patients' catatonic behaviour started. His passion and dedication for finding the cure made Dr. Sayer a non-conformist of sorts, as he did not succumb to the opinions of the other doctors that Lucy's behaviour was just a reflex and that he should give up on his 'wild goose chase'. Relating this back to psychology, sometimes it is best to avoid conforming with the larger group of people and to trust your instincts as you might turn out to be right, like the bystander effect for example when a homeless man lays motionless on the pavement in a city but nobody is helping him due to everybody conforming with each other to not help the man, but your decision to not conform with the people in the area and help the homeless man instead may save his life.

But of course, it was interesting to watch passion revealing its dark side as well. Although Dr. Sayer has a passion that aims to improve the lives of his patients and those around them, his passion became desperation as Dr. Sayer was so insisting on curing his first patient-cum-test subject, Leonard, he did some really unethical acts, such as discreetly upping the dosage of the medicine L-Dopa he was giving to Leonard, without the consent of his pharmacist and Mrs Lowe, Leonard's mother. Not only was Dr. Sayer reckless, but there a risk of danger to Leonard as he might suffer from an overdose. In another scene, Dr. Sayer's passion once again revealed its ugly head when he refused to receive the advice of his fellow doctors and Mrs Lowe in the beginning to stop Leonard's L-Dopa treatment, after he showed uncontrollable muscle twitches as well as being more aggressive, as the drug could have caused these behaviours. Dr. Sayer's refusal to stop Leonard's treatment is known as the sunk cost effect, as he believes that he should carry on with treatment after all the effort he has invested in this despite the detrimental outcome of Leonard. But thankfully he acknowledged that the drug was causing Leonard's negative behaviors at the end and drastically reduced Leonard's dosage. The theme of the dark side of passion has appeared in some movies, including the recent Disney movie Moana.

Moana movie poster from Independent.co.uk

**SPOILER ALERT!**

Moana's determination to return the Heart of Te Fiti to Te Fiti herself even though the situation does not allow her to, endangered not only her own life, but her friend, Maui damaged his irreplaceable magical fish hook that gives him demigod powers, protecting Moana from the attacks of Te Ka, a fire monster that was standing in between Moana and Maui's way to Te Fiti. The disaster could have been avoided if Moana decided to fall back from the scuffle and devise another solution to get past Te Ka and get to Te Fiti.

Let's go back to Awakenings. Dr. Sayer's ability to bring together his team of nurses (And janitor), to help improve the lives of their patients also made me attracted to Dr. Sayer's character. For a man who was poor with human relationships, he was able to convince the nurses in his department that were lazy and slacking off their jobs at first, to become a team that is dedicated to treating these patients. This is a form of social cohesion as everyone in Dr. Sayer's team shared a common goal of curing their patients, which transformed his once inefficient nurses to the most caring and dedicated team in nursing their patients, even after the patients' 'awakening' period has passed and are back to their catatonic state. It was also particularly touching to watch the nurses fork out their own money to convince the hospital head Dr Kaufman to grant Dr. Sayer funding to purchase L-Dopa drugs for his patients. This made me realize that when a group strongly believes in their goals, they will be able to accomplish almost anything in their pursuit of success.

Cinema Paradiso - The Journey of Seeking Love

Movie poster from AllPosters

Love - it's a wonderfully neutral phenomena. It's neither good nor bad; it's up to how we interpret it. This theme was explored deeply in this movie, a 1989 Academy Award Winning Italian film, Cinema Paradiso.

What the director Giuseppe Tornatore did for the movie plot struck a chord within me as he utilized the very nature of love being a source of strength only after pain is felt. There were many scenes in the movie that portrayed this.  **SPOILER ALERT!** For instance, when Salvatore, more fondly known as Toto, was a kid, he grew up without the love of his biological father as he was killed in action as a soldier during World War II, where Alfredo, the only film projectionist in his neighbourhood cinema, became a fatherly figure to Toto, albeit the frictions they had in their relationship in the beginning of the movie. He gave him the love that he needed as a child growing up, from teaching him lessons in life based on quotes he took from movies, and to teaching him every nook and cranny behind the art of projecting films, where Toto would grow to love to become a successful film producer as an adult. It was interesting to note also that Social Learning Theory was in play here, as the theory dictates that a child learns by observing his/her surroundings, which in this case, Toto learning to love film production and projecting based on his observations of Alfredo manning the film projector every time the town's pastor screens through movies before they are released to the public to censor "inappropriate" scenes. There was one scene where Toto learned to turn off the projector when Alfredo went out of the room for a brief moment, and realised that Toto learned to work the projector after observing Alfredo do it before. Toto's dedication and love towards film projecting was even more enhanced after enduring the pain of having Alfredo lose his sight from a fire in the projector room, so Toto had to take over his Alfredo due to his disability.

Another scene where love grows through pain is Toto's, his family's, and Alfredo's pain as Toto left his hometown for Rome to make a living for himself, after noticing the town was not like what it used to be before he went for his military service. Alfredo said this to Toto as he was about to board his train to Rome: 

"Get out of here! Go back to Rome. You're young and the world is yours. I'm old. I don't want to hear you talk anymore. I want to hear others talking about you. Don't come back. Don't think about us. Don't look back. Don't write. Don't give in to nostalgia. Forget us all. If you do and you come back, don't come see me. I won't let you in my house. Understand?" 

Through his statement, it can be noted that Alfredo will definitely miss Toto, but he felt he had to do this in order to ensure the young lad a chance to be a somebody in the modern world. It's interesting to see that even though Alfredo said these harsh words, we as the audience are able to note a hint of sadness and reluctance of Alfredo letting go of Toto into the real world. The way he said his words was a form of priming, where we response according to the stimuli that we receive, in this case is the way Alfredo phrased his sentence that primed a hint of sadness within him. Everyone close to Alfredo felt the pain of separation, but it was through this separation that allowed Toto to pave a way to his fame and success, but at a cost of his family's and Alfredo's love. 

As the icing on the cake, the feeling of pain and love (a bittersweet feeling of sorts) can be felt by the audience as the soundtrack of the movie is played over and over again through scenes portraying this theme. 

Here's a link to the soundtrack (Thanks, Ruychaven!) --> Cinema Paradiso Soundtrack -Love Theme  

The music intensifies the experience of that hurt and love at the same time by the audience as it is a form of classical conditioning where upon repeated exposure to the soundtrack (Neutral Stimulus) every time a scene portraying the theme of love through pain is showed (Unconditioned Stimulus), evoking a bittersweet feeling (Unconditioned Response). As the movie comes to a close, the audience will be conditioned to experience a bittersweet feeling within them (Conditioned Response) whenever they hear the song (Conditioned Response).

All in all, the movie was beautifully crafted in a way that although love brings pain and suffering at times, it will teach us to never give up on what you love to do, and in time bring resilience and more strength to push through life's obstacles.