Eat Drink Man Woman

                               

The Plot

The plot of the story is simple, warm and full of surprises. It is a fun movie to be watched. Despite of being simple, it manages to deliver a heavy message.

Mr. Chu is a masterchef for Chinese cuisine. He’s a widower with three daughters. The first daughter is Chu Jia Jen, the second, Chua Jia Chien and the youngest, Chu Jia Ning. All three daughters are unmarried. Two of his daughters may be consider as a late bloomers.

The story basically centralized around those characters in their daily life. Every Sunday, Mr. Chu will have a family dinner. He prepares the food wholeheartedly as if it is a big banquet. Well, it does seems so. There are a lot of food on the tables but there are also a lot of food left uneaten.

The dinner is one of the way for Mr. Chu to communicate with his family. During dinner, they will talk about something and the funny thing is every time there is diner, the family members will have an announcement to make. Those announcements are the important element that makes the story ongoing. Most of the announcements made are mainly to inform other family members about their relationship. The youngest daughter breaks the stereotype of marriage turn when she announces her pregnancy. Without further questions, Mr Chu sends of her youngest to the hand of a young man. The second daughter’s announcement is about her moving out from the house and career promotion to Amsterdam. While, the eldest announcement is about her getting married. Hence, leaving the second sibling unmarried.

During and between the days before dinners, there are also a lot of individuals’ issue that the film portrays. The second daughter issues are the heaviest compared to other. Her issues is about friend-with-benefits relationship, distance daughter-father-siblings relationship, and career decision to be made. While the eldest daughter issues are about her distancing herself from any intimate relationship and her sense of responsibility towards her father.

Uniquely, all the complicated issues mentioned above are tackled in such a witty and intriguing way. This make the movie easy to be watched and understand by the audience even though it caters to a heavy message. Despite of being an old movie, however, those issues are still relevant until today. Hence, this film is highly recommended to be watched by anyone especially to those who can relate to a cold-warm family relationship interaction because it provides evidence that simple action can be a way for people to channel their love.

There is one full-blown surprise towards the end of the movie! It will leaves you with awe and admiration towards the scriptwriter for a genius wrap up. To avoid making a big spoiler, do watch it yea!

The character

                                      

I would like to point out one character only that make the story feels warm and approachable. Well, of course other characters are important as well, but I am more attracted to Mr Chu who portrays exactly the stereotypes that I have for traditional family parenting.

Mr Chu is a realistic portrayal of a widower from traditional Asian father-figure based on stereotype that most people have. Or it may be my own stereotype. I perceived a traditional father-figure as a person who don’t know how to be affectionate towards his children, and this stereotype is enhanced when he is a widower.

Perhaps, this character can be discussed based on situational and personality theory.  I observed that Mr Chu has a warm and approachable vibe surround him, however it doesn’t seems so when he is around his daughters. For instance, he is a loving father-figure towards Shan-shan (a child character), a great listener towards Mrs Liang (aunty-like character who is the mother of Jin-rong (a single mother/ mother to Shanshan) but very cold character towards his daughter. I would like to view his behavior based on the Personological system point of view. Personological system was a term coined out by Henry Murray for his personality theory that viewed personality is the result of complex organism responding to specific nature or environment.  Here, needs, motivations and environmental press (situational drive) derived from others are very important in determining how a person would behave towards particular people. I remember that the second daughter mentioned he was very warm towards her when she was a child. So, I think Mr Chu started behaving coldly towards the daughters is due to his frustration and sadness from losing his wife. He then channels out the feelings to his children resulting them to become apart. He may feel a great sense of responsibility to take care of the children without their mother. As he loves them, he provided them with sufficient materials and foods as a chef. However, the lack of physical affection and communication make his children perceive him as cold.  

Murray viewed situational and social role as the important determinant for personality. I think this is really relevant to Mr Chu character because the situational factor such as losing his wife and taking care of his children while filing up social role such being both father-and mother-like figure to his children has makes him more focused on the burden that he needs to hold instead of looking at what the children needs the most, for him to show his affections.

I also think that the differences between the treatments he gives towards his children from childhood until they are grown up is because the feedback that he gets from his children. Of course they are adorable as a child, however as they grew up perhaps some start to have some rebel or ignore him. This is only my assumption of why he behaves the way he is towards his children, perhaps there are other factor that I missed from the movie itself.

The washing-dishes scene

 

  

I choose a scene where the daughters are washing dishes in the kitchen as the most interesting scene that make me reflects on myself. Actually there are several scenes that shows them washing dishes and all of them are my favourites. Of course they are a lot of other scenes that seems interesting and you must be wonder why i am attracted to this scene.

So, what makes that scenes notable to me?

In that scenes, the second daughter are asking about the first daughter opinion about starting a relationship. The eldest daughter tells her that she is not ready and ask her not to worry about her life. She also confesses about the responsibility that she thinks it is her duty to take care of their father who’s getting old once the other daughters leave the house. They also talk about other thing while washing dishes in other scenes. I think that they enclose more about their thought during these scenes compared to their family gathering (dinner time). Dinner time is specifically used for them to make an announcement and not as a place to share intimate conversation. I realized that I could have intimate conversation with my siblings even while we are doing something simple together. You do not have to sit down seriously just to share your opinion but rather the best way is to do it naturally during appropriate times. I choose this scene because it also seems relatable to me.

Lessons

I have learned a lot from this movie. I learned that people have different way of expressing love. Some people may express it through words and actions. Thus it is up to us to be observant enough to know whether they are expressing their love or not. For example, Mr Chu is working hard to prepare the dinner for every Sunday. This is his way to express his love. The sad thing is that people often take other people kindness for granted and therefore often misunderstood the sign of love as the cues for other emotions, hence feeling distance in the relationship just like what happens to Mr Chu and his second daughter especially. So in case people do not understand the love gesture, please verbalized your love to others!

Say it before it’s too late!

I also learned that we cannot judge other’s character based on her behavior alone. For example, the second daughter always rebelling and always says that the father and her are distance when in fact they are the closest emotionally. So it is important to determine whether they meant what they are saying or they are just saying the opposite things from their feeling.

Human relationship is complicated yet it provides comfort in our life.  

 

Movie Review: Awakening

Plot

Dr. Seyer is a shy doctor describing himself as being not good with people. He mainly interacts with non-human element as it is his interest. However, working as a physician at a hospital needed him to be “a doctor’s doctor”. He needs to interact directly with patients and so, he discovers his caring inner self towards others. This story centers on his passion to treat his patients and his realization towards life. The character of Leonard Lowe, a catatonic patient at a hospital is one of the main focuses of this story. He was being carried away for decades after surviving the epidemic of encephalitis lethargica disease. Being catatonic, many people surrounding the patients including the nurses and the doctors perceived them as being not aware of the world.

One day, Dr Seyer realizes that all patients have similar condition in which all of them are responsive towards the ball thrown to them. So, he concluded that the patients are taking the will of the ball to be responsive. Hence, motivates them to do the behavior. While many other doctors ridicule him, however he do not give up his idea due to the encouragement of Nurse Eleanor (a passionate nurse in the hospital).

After attending a lecture regarding L-Dopa, he become interested of its effects and thought that this could be apply to his patients too. His prediction is indeed true as Leonard who is first administered L-dopa is awaken from his own world. As a result from that success, L-dopa is also administered to other patient as well.

Leonard shows improvement in his behavior, he can walk and converse normally. He also become romantically interested with Paula. As Leonard desires freedom to be able to take a walk alone despite the hospital restriction, he begins to show a sign of agitation. His body tics becoming uncontrollable. The side effect of L-dopa finally revealed itself. Later, he is hardly moving and suffer from the pain. Leonard, in hope to help in the research of the disorder, is giving permission to be film as he suffers from the side effects.

Lastly, Dr Seyer give a speech in front of donors that L-dopa do awakens the patients. However, it does not last long. This phenomena has teach many people that people need to appreciate every little things in life.

Review

First of all, this is a really good movie. This can be consider as a masterpiece for the plot, the actors and the details that have been presented to the viewer. This film production has done justice to portray such a beautiful journey to find a cure not only for disorder but also for the soul. Honestly, this story is really inspiring. This film managed to grab my attention from the start until the end. it proved that this movie is really good. Personally, by looking at the setting of this movie, I was expecting a bored and slow storyline. However, it maintains the dynamic between the facts presented as well as other story that might be exaggerated to add dramatic feeling through it. Overall, I am satisfied by the characters’ interaction as well as how the story developed.

Even though this story focuses on Dr. Malcom Seyer, however I could not help by noticing how Leonard character remarkably brings an impact throughout the whole story especially in term of making the viewer understand how it feels like to be trapped in your own world.

Characters

Robert De Nero has successfully makes his character believable. I was so amazed by how detailed the symptoms of body spasm and catatonia is being portrayed. Personally, I think this kind of disorder is really difficult to be portrayed without exaggeration. Yet, I totally believe and immerse in Robert’s interpretation before and after he gets ‘awaken’. His character touches me in many way, one example is that, he appreciates little things that happens in his life so much to compensate the life that he loss for many years after being awaken. He also managed to make me understand how it feels to be detached from the world for many years.  

I also noticed how well the character transforms right in front of my eyes. From being catatonia to a normal person and back to being catatonia again. This might be impossible to be interpreted if one only practises the behaviour of a patient and do not immerse himself as being one. 

Besides, I love to see how Dr Seyer character grows from being uninterested in human interaction to being the most caring doctor in the hospital. His achievement and observation is remarkable especially at the part where he identified that the patient respond well at catching the ball thrown to them. With his determination, he manages to make a breakthrough both in the medical and care services domain. From the experience of patients being ‘awaken’, the nurses now realize that psychiatric patients do have emotions ad awareness but in their own world and that they need to be treated equally as the normal people.

Lessons

This movie teaches me a lot of lessons. Firstly, one cannot simply ignore the reality. However, by doing a reality check doesn’t mean you ignore your belief. As an example, both Dr. Seyer and Leonard acknowledge that the drug does not last for so long and there are side effects to it. Besides, other problem emerges such as feeling of being left out after being awaken may cause other emotional problem. Despite of this problem, Dr Seyer still believes that his patients can be cure through one important things that people often took for granted, that is human touch. The power of human touch may be so powerful that it can pass through the cage that the patients created to get to their world. For instance, Dr Seyer interacting with Leonard by Ouija board.

I also realized that love is such a mystic and incomprehensible medium for people to be connected with each other. Leonard’s mother is willing to take care of him until both of them getting old. I was touched by her sacrifice and devotion towards her son. I believe most of the parents will feel the same if they happened to encounter similar situation. 

This movie managed to make me think about my own life. Do I appreciate little things that happens in my life? Do I take people kindness for granted? What do you think?

Cinema Paradiso

This film depicting such a beautiful friendship that overcome the age barrier. Portrayal of  friendship is shown to transcend across time and place. This is a sweet yet bitter story about how a man named Toto managed to achieve his dream trough the wisdom and guidance of his friend, Alfredo.

Personally, I think this movie is a little bit slow however it managed to capture my attention due to the portrayal of growing relationship between Toto and Alfredo. I love how this film use the interaction between both characters that basically show the development of each character. I believe a sense of belonging plays important role that create the Toto-Alfredo friendship since both of them do not have a father-like figure to look up into and a child-like figure to give the love to. Together, they complete each other needs through their friendship.

Besides, I think their friendship grows because both of them have no expectation for the relationship. Toto always do unexpected behavior that sometimes annoys Alfredo, but through those behavior Alfredo feels attached to him. Since he took Toto under his wings to learn about film, he would satisfy his needs to become useful for other people or to guide younger generation as to lead a healthy transition life development (generativity vs stagnation).

The value of wisdom are shown by Alfredo despite his character in the film. Alfredo advised Toto to go out from his comfort zone and travel to another place. Of course, to his knowledge Toto would acquire experiences needed to become a successful filmmaker and he is right. At the end, Toto is successful.

This film has given an insight to me that  a person's wisdom nurtures a successful individual.