Ang Lee's trilogy, why is "Diet Men and Women" the best?
Its "family trilogy", also known as the "father trilogy": "Push hand", "Wedding Feast", "Eating Men and Women".
The theme is deconstructing the "family", or deconstructing the "father" to be precise! Why did Ang Lee turn his gun on "Father"?
This has a lot to do with his family environment and growth experience, and is described in detail in "Ang Lee Biography: A Dream of a Movie in Ten Years".
As the eldest son of the family, his father, who was the principal of the middle school, had high hopes for him, but Ang Lee had been uncompromising when he was studying, and his grades were average.
He also "disobeyed" his father's orders, did not develop his career plan as he said to be a teacher, and his father's disappointment was written on his face, but the pain remained in his son's heart.
For Ang Lee, his childhood and adolescence lived a depressed and tangled life, even if he went to the United States to study, and even became a human wife father, the father's "shadow" still oppressed his ideological nerves like a mountain, and it always lingered.
Therefore, he can only take up the "weapon" in his hand and "shoot" at his father through the movie!
Only in this way can we untie the knot little by little, reconcile with the past, and reconcile with the father.
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The script of "Pusher" finally gave Ang Lee, who had been at home for 6 years, have a way to live because of the award in Taiwan.
Yes, he can make movies and no longer have to be a cook.
The film tells the story of a retired tai chi teacher (played by Lang Xiong) who goes to the United States to live with his son's family.
The plot is fluid and focuses mainly on the conflict between the Chinese old man and the American daughter-in-law in a cross-cultural context.
Whether it is language, thinking, concepts, or living habits, the contradictions between the two are difficult to reconcile, and the son sandwiched in the middle is even more anxious.
We sympathize with the father's plight and understand the situation of the son, who is very filial and loves his wife, but he can't solve the dilemma caused by cultural differences.
Leaving aside the cross-cultural background, the pension problem reflected in the film is already a universal social problem in today's countries around the world.
From the plot setting to the shooting method, to the thinking caused, "Push hand" has a high artistic value.
The biggest drawback is that the father's image is "too fat", but it makes people feel that the old man is not so real.
Ang Lee seems to be eager to add more elements of traditional Chinese culture to his body, in addition to being a master of tai chi, he can also write calligraphy, love to listen to Peking Opera and can also follow the hum, and also know how to meditate and retreat.
This kind of "fullness" is very suspicious of eagerly displaying traditional Chinese culture in front of Westerners.
In particular, the "spectacle" presentation of taijiquan is really incredible, and the cultural treasures left by our ancestors are really so mysterious?
For example, in the scene in the restaurant, several American policemen pushed the old man to stand with his eyes closed, and he did not move?
I don't know if it's because Taijiquan crossed the ocean to the United States or how to drop it, the old man's Taijiquan is too powerful!
From the perspective of realism, these places seem too "fake"! The above is a fly in the ointment.
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The second "Wedding Feast" is characterized by being too dramatic, so it will be particularly lively and good-looking, which is Ang Lee's strength, he studied drama.
Gao Weitong (Zhao Wenxuan) and Simon are gay, and Weiwei rents Gao Weitong's house and is a poor painter eager to get a green card.
Faced with his parents' reluctant pursuit of forced marriage, Wei Tong wrote that he would get married in the near future, but his parents immediately parachuted in and wanted to attend his son's wedding.
Wei Tong, who originally planned to deceive his parents, obeyed Simon's idea and married Huan Wei (Kim So-mei) in a fake marriage, but the fake drama really made her pregnant.
The process is full of twists and turns, absurd and funny, and the problem at the end is finally achieved in a way that the parties compromise to achieve the "great consummation".
It seems good, it is the result of the reconciliation of China and the West, but it is actually too idealistic! Just imagine, the special family of two men and one woman, it is so easy to "the world is too peaceful"?
Compared with "Pusher", the background of cross-cultural differences in this film is actually weakened a lot, and the core conflict is still what attitude to homosexuality.
The father in the film is an old general, and his traditional cultural roots are equally deep, the difference is that he can be wise and foolish, and skillfully maneuver.
At the Chinese wedding, Ang Lee went abroad and, as a guest, said to the Westerners who came to the wedding feast:
You're seeing the results of 5,000 years of sexual repression.
This line personally spoken by the director is the theme of the film, and in our traditional culture, the topic of sex is secretive.
The problem of the survival instinct, because of the intervention of culture, customs, and ideas, has become depressing, complex, and even caused many tragedies.
"The Wedding Feast" won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1993, which is worthy of its name.
This is the only comedy genre film in all of Ang Lee's works, and the commercial and artistic aspects are perfectly balanced.
If you want to pick a "fault", it is a little too dramatic.
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The trilogy developed to the finale of "Eating Men and Women", but it is wonderful!
Ang Lee put together the two things of human desire in one furnace and stewed it with skillful artistic techniques.
We see the "disintegration" of the traditional extended family, the liberation of the individual, and the "rebirth" of the father.
The film has a total of 6 family dinners, which are progressive and advance the plot.
The sumptuous cuisine on the table is the embodiment of traditional Chinese food culture, and the people sitting around the table are the source of contradictions.
The widower old man struggled to maintain the warmth of the family with a table of food, but in the end he was unable to do so, and the three daughters still ran their own way.
"Diet Men and Women" is a good expression that is as plain as water on the surface, but the expression of the undercurrent is surging on the inside, which is quite Chinese characteristics.
Everyone tries to be as kind as possible on the table, but there is no conflict, everyone wants to consider for others, but in private, they have their own embarrassment, but they are ashamed to talk about it.
So, what exactly does "home" mean in the traditional sense?
The individual is trapped in the original family, and instinctively longs for the comfort of feelings, hoping to form his own small family.
The film cleverly deconstructs the delicate and complex relationships between family members through family dinners.
The status and psychological state of the three daughters in the original family are very different, and it is very important to have insight into this.
The eldest daughter, Jia Zhen (Yang Guimei), due to the early death of her mother, subconsciously regards herself as a mother, not only to help her father run the family, but also to take care of her two younger sisters as her mission.
As a result, the original simple sisterhood is misplaced, and her kindness is often not responded to, but the relationship with her sister is very awkward. After all, deep sisterhood and maternal love are two different things.
What's worse is that the overburdened family treasure has a psychological mutation, and she has a hypocritical and escapist side.
The whole person lacks self-confidence, relies on a false emotional wound he has fabricated to deceive himself, and relies on religious piety to comfort the soul.
Fortunately, when she met Teacher Zhou, the other side of her heart was reactivated, and she appeared in front of others in a completely different style than before.
Quickly falling in love and getting married escapes the primitive family, which can also be said to have gone against her initial wishes.
But from the perspective of individual happiness, Jiazhen finally did not indulge in the dream of self-deception, but truly faced reality.
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The second daughter, Jia Qian (played by Wu Qianlian), is the most intelligent and capable.
She inherited her father's genes of great cooking skills and grew up in the back kitchen, but his father wanted her to study so that she could excel in other ways.
This concept of hoping for thousands of years to become a dragon and a woman to become a phoenix has cruelly deprived Jia Qian of the right to freely develop her personal interests, and naturally their relationship is the most tense.
Therefore, her special pursuit of independence is actually a kind of rebellion, hoping to accumulate chips to escape from the family.
Unfortunately, the real estate of investment is bloody, and she who is the most emotionally open has not been able to have a stable nest.
In the end, after her father announced that she was going to marry Jinrong, she decided to buy her father's old house and start her life again.
The one who wanted to escape the most stayed, fiddling with her cooking in her father's kitchen.
The third daughter, Jia Ning, appears in a well-behaved and obedient image, and is the most characteristic of the three sisters.
In fact, because she is the youngest, she was inadvertently ignored, and she could only strive for it herself without love and care.
Jia Ning studied and went to school while working hard, she also very cleverly took away her girlfriend's boyfriend, and soon had children after the flash marriage.
From Jia Ning, we see people's self-protection instinct, when the family can not take care of their emotional needs in a timely and considerate manner, they will seek protection on their own, and obtain energy outside the family to meet their own emotional demands.
In addition to the wonderful depiction of the three daughters, the most unexpected is Lao Zhu.
Under his usual conservative appearance, he made the most daring move, and he bravely pursued his own love.
Lao Zhu and his daughter's classmate JinRong (Zhang Aijia) married and gave birth to a baby.
This kind of "great rebellion" is a major breakthrough in the image of "father".
The "father" put down the burden of traditional culture, faced his own life function squarely, faced life frankly, and strived for the happiness of the world.
It is clear to us that he and his three daughters were equally trapped by the family and sought liberation in their own ways.
That is to say, the large family (family) in the traditional sense gradually disintegrates, the individual is on the rise, and the pursuit and willingness of individuals are slowly promoted.
Lao Zhu has a line in the film, he said "eating men and women, people's great desires, it is difficult not to think", incisively breaking the theme of the film.
Whether it is the traditional extended family of the fourth or even the fifth generation, or the current nuclear family (small family), its essence is the same.
The ultimate function of the family is two things: to eat men and women, which is also the basis of human beings.
All the conflicts between father and daughter and sister in the film are rooted in this.
They meet again and again at the dinner table, but they can only solve the problem of food, and sex is secretive and cannot be talked about on the table.
Therefore, contradictions are inevitable, only escape, the instinct to carry people's great desires in the new family.
Here is also a kind of criticism of the Chinese-style family on the issue of communication and communication, relatives can not say anything, they are often too subtle, may also hold in their hearts do not say, each other like to consider each other, take care of each other's face.
The result? It is often the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of communication, and it is inevitable that there will be a false face.
At the end of the film, Lao Zhu, who has obtained the second spring of life, has miraculously recovered his vanished sense of taste, which is really intriguing.