Yifei Du (Cathy)
10/02/14
WR100 Professor Kim
Paper2–Announcement vs. Communication
“Eat Drink Man Woman”, directed by Ang Lee, is a movie about family problems and generation conflicts. The leading role of the whole movie is a professional and retired chef whose name is Mr. Chu. He has three daughters who have different personalities and hold different values about life and love. In this film, Mr. Chu uses food to maintain the harmony and stability of the family but he is disappointed every time because of receiving the shocking news at the dinner table. All of his daughters prefer to make announcement instead of communicating and negotiating and every announcement in this film seems unexpected and ridiculous, especially about the characters’ precipitate love. So making announcement is a good way for characters to express their improper and unexpected behaviors.
Firstly, the eldest daughter-Jen chooses to make announcement to her family that she has already married with a guy at the dinner table because she seems like a traditional woman who shouldn’t do this. Because of the death of her mother, Jen takes a lot of responsibility to take care of her family. The scene that she and the second daughter-Kien are washing the dishes and talking about leaving home expresses that Jen is a conservative woman who wants to stay at home and accompany with Mr. Chu. But the most shocking news is that she suddenly tells her family that she has to leave home because she has finished her marriage. She used to be obstinate, sensitive, and restrained because of a failed love affair during her university years; she is afraid to love and to be loved; she even imagines a relationship that does not exist and she uses religious faith to anesthetize herself. But she is a typical example of exploding in silence since she marries with Coach at the first day when they confirm their relationship and leaves home at the same time. Jen does a lot of thing that are not matched with her previous personality and habit, so she chooses to make an announcement instead of communicating with her family at the end of the story.
The second daughter-Kien also chooses to make announcement about her love and job when she did something unexpected and unacceptable. Kien is a successful and capable woman in the field of working but not in the field of love and relationship. She has a great job but she loses everything that she has when she wrongly invest in an apartment. She makes announcement at the dinner table because she did something wrong. She has a typical postmodern love in this film. She not only has the relationship with a guy who has a family but also has an ambiguous relationship with her peer of work. She should be considered as the most dissolute woman in this story but if we can watch this film carefully, we will see that her inner bones still contain the feudal thoughts. She chooses to alienate his former boyfriend when she knows that he is going to be married and to alienate his co-worker when she thinks that he is her sister’s former boyfriend. She has no regard for the old and ordinary love but she finally gets a bleak ending because of irresponsibility. It is a kind of criticism that Ang Lee wants to express, and that’s why he chooses the second daughter-Kien to be the only one who accompanies with Mr. Chu.
Although Ning is the youngest one in this film, she is the first person to be pregnant, leave home and start her own life. For her age, having a baby is not a normal thing, so she becomes the first person to make announcement to her family. She didn’t talk her love story with her father and sisters but tells everybody that she has to leave home because she is pregnant at the dinner table. Making announcement is just a one-way speaking and it allows her to express her unacceptable behavior.
How about the relationship between Mr. Chu and Jin-Rong? It’s a kind of true love with regardless of public opinion. Mr. Chu realizes that this relationship will shock and hurt some people so he decides to make announcement at the final family dinner. He tells everyone that he falls in love with Jin-Rong without any hint and suggestion. He doesn’t try to talk with his daughter about this relationship because he has no courage to overcome the gossip around him and he is afraid to be treated as an irrational and incompetent father. At the end of the story, he gets his taste back and tells everyone that he falls in love with Jinrong. It’s a kind of hope of the director-Ang Lee who wants to express that it’s time for the father to take off the burden and get what he desires. Their relationship tells us that love makes people crazy and making announcement lets people do crazy things and get freedom.
In “Eat Drink Man Woman”, Mr. Chu believes that food can stimulate family bonding but every time when he and his three daughters sit and eat together, they are not trying to bond with each other, and that’s the reason why the food is always left over. All of Mr. Chu’s daughters in this film leave no space for consulting and negotiating. They just tell their final decisions to their family but never try to ask for their family any advice or help because making announcement is the easiest way to avoid judgment and gain what they want. Although they always sit and eat together, they think different things and never try to know each other. Lose of enough communication makes this family detached and disharmonious.
We see the importance of love and communication in this film “Eat Drink Man Woman,” and I think every relationship is meaningful to both characters and audiences. Living in a traditional family makes everyone learn to make announcement instead of communicating and negotiating when they do something improper and unexpected because it is the best way to avoid reality and get what they desire.