Final Blossay: Memory

Memory is something that humans rely on to make their decisions or to relive memories of happiness or sadness. We remember things which is why we remember whose birthday it is or what our sisters favorite color is. A memory can also recall a moment that truly changed our lives a moment that made us who we are today.  The films I have chosen to write on memory are Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…Spring, Ikiru, Sandakan 8 and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. All of these films feature characters whose stories are truly affected by their past and their own memories.  

            Ikiru is an obvious film that shows the life of the main character and how he reflected on his own life at the discovery that his life will end.  When someone hears that their life may end they reflect on their own past and on what they want to do with the time left. Watanabe sits in a funk when he learns that he will soon die of cancer. We see Watanabe’s reflection on his own life and life as he raised his son alone after the death of his wife. Watanabe’s memories of how he raised his son changed how he lived his life after his untold diagnosis. Watanabe and his son have a strained relationship to begin with, when Watanabe learns that he is dying he thinks of how he cared for his son and for how he wishes his son would care for him. When Watanabe thinks of his son when his appendix was taken out as a child he thinks of how he wants to be cared for and how absent he was as a parent.

            Death and memories are highly associated in Ikiru. We see Watanabe and his son in front of him in the car leaving Watanabe’s wife’s funeral. We see Watanabe’s sad face, with his open eyes that is the main facial expression in the film. We see his son looking so blank, so confused but also filled with emotion. Watanabe holds and cradles his son, knowing how much their life has changed now that his wife has died. When Watanabe cradles his son it shows a new beginning a start of their lives as just father and son. This memory stuck out to me because of the new life that it symbolized for Watanabe, he held his son and was his sons only provider. This moment is shown throughout the film, when Watanabe and his son are in scenes together. We see Watanabe not being the greatest father figure in the flashback scenes in the film.   

            Most of Sandakan 8 is Osaki telling her story as her life of a prostitute when she was a young woman. She tells her story and is reliving her story during her interview and discussion with Keiko. While she relives her story she gets emotionally attached to Keiko. Another reason she gets emotional is because of her new attachment to Keiko and the fact that so many people abandoned her because of her past with prostitution. Reliving memories of the pain and sadness that she felt when she lived in the house in her youth created such a horrid memory of her own past.

            Osaki tells her story throughout the film, we tells her story of how she survived as a prostitute in her youth. Those memories of her pain and of how much she worked shaped who she was. Not only did being a prostitute change her because of her experiences working but it shaped her life after she left Sandakan 8. When Osaki goes back to live with her brother he mistreats her simply because she was a prostitute.  She was isolated from her own family that wanted her safety and happiness more than anything else. I remember when she went on the boat to leave and her brother ran to the top of the mountain just to watch her sail away. Where is that brother, that wanted to say he last goodbye to his sister? After she slept with so many men she was discarded from her own family. She worked so hard to make sure that she and her family were able to live a better life. Her brother discards her and wants her out of her life because she was a prostitute. After she leaves her brothers home she marries a man and has a child, a son. When her husband dies, her son lets her take care of him and then after he marries and has his own family he disregards her, and sends her an allowance as his only way to have a relationship with him. Her decision, no not even her decision but being forced into prostitution ruined Osaki’s family relationships and her reputation as a woman in society.

            Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon shows Jen in her captivity with Lo. We see Jen and Lo together we see the love between them and the intimacy in their relationship. We see Jen not as a fighter but as a sensitive woman in love. Jen and Lo have a passionate connection that we only see in flashback scenes in the desert. We see Jen as a vulnerable woman, which is a complete 180 from the strong fighter that she is after she is trained by Jade Fox. As I personally watched the film I began to warm up to Jen when I saw how vulnerable a character that she is and watching a woman in love shows a different side to a tough woman, though it is a cliché. We would view Jen differently if we did not see her time with Lo in the cave in the desert. We also learn of the troubles that Jen feels towards her own family. This foreshadows to the broken relationship that she has with Jade Fox. When we see Jen as a woman in love we see how she could grow so attached to Shu Lien. Jen is someone that wanted to be nurtured and loved, not thrown into battle or into a forced a marriage.

            Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter…Spring tells a story of life lessons, youth, and dedication. We see a young monk who tortures animals by tying a rock to a fish so it sinks to the bottom of a pond, tying a string around a frog so tightly that we see air puff up between the tight string, and the boy ties a string around the neck of the snake, making it hard to breathe. The animals torture is a foreshadowing of the murder that the monk commits later in life. Would we view the monk differently if he committed the murder, and we didn’t know of his torturing past? Is the torturing of the animals showing us what he is truly capable of?   Was the animal torture just a curiosity inside of him? Or was he truly rebelling from the path of peace and enlightenment that he was going on? When the young monk thinks of how his actions ended up killing the fish and the snake, he cries. After he kills his wife he later reacts emotionally like he did as a child. I wonder is he thinking back to that time as a child, when he was so vulnerable and so distraught, after the realization that he killed two people. We also see the pattern reemerge when the new young monk, is torturing animals in an even crueler way. Filling the animals mouths with rocks and watching them drown and suffer in the pond. When we see this, we see that the cycle will continue and maybe it will even grow worse.  Since we knew the past of the old monk does this change how we view the younger monk while torturing the animals?

            All four films show the past of the protagonists or in some cases the antagonists of the films. Does what they did in their past affect what they did in the films? How do they react to what they have done in the past? How does the audience react with knowing, or not knowing what has happened before the film even started? Like most films these films started off with the unknown, we did not immediately know who the characters were or what previously had happened to the characters. As we learned of the characters past and memories we learned more about them and about the relationships and hardships that each character went through in their life before the film.  

            Another theme in the memories of all for films is that it showed our main characters in such vulnerable places in their life. We see signs of weakness and of moments when they didn’t make the greatest decisions, moments when they might regret something or moments when they had to make huge moral decisions that changed their lives and the lives of those that surrounded them. When you think of a weak moment in your life it is easy to feel vulnerable again. We see this when Watanabe thinks of leaving his son after he goes into surgery, or when Osaki thinks of the first time she has sex as a prostitute, when Jen decides that she has to go back home and leave Lo and when the monk thinks of the animals that he has hurt.

            In conclusion memories affect everyone, not only in these films but in our world. Memories help shape the experiences we have and how we react to certain situations and to people we communicate with. The four films that I wrote about dealt well with memories and how they affected the characters’ lives. I learned so much about memory and storytelling while analyzing these four very different films. 

Howl's Moving Castle: Blossay 3

Howls Moving Castle is a Japanese anime film by Hayao Miyazaki.

            I will start this blossay with a summary of Howl’s Moving Castle, for those of you who haven’t watched this film. The protagonist of the film is Sophie, a young hat maker who is very responsible. When eighteen year old Sophie is on the way to visit her sister she meets a young attractive wizard named Howl. Another witch named the Witch of the Waste sees Howl and Sophie, and makes her an old woman. Sophie is distraught and wants to find a cure to the curse; she then heads off to the Wastes. At the Wastes she meets a living scarecrow who takes her to Howl’s castle. The castle is energized and powered by a fire demon named Calcifer. Calcifer is also under a spell which keeps him energizing the house and to hide the house from outside people. Sophie and Calcifer want to work together to break each other’s curses. Sophie decides to work as a maid in the castle to find a way to break the spell and to help Calcifer who is old and ill.

            While Sophie is at the castle working her home country is at war with its neighboring land, after the Prince of their land is missing. The war is getting bad and the father of the prince the King asks Howl to morph into other creatures to help him fight the war. Howl wants Sophie to pretend to be his mother to go to the king and confess that one of Howl’s allies is a coward.

            Sophie runs into the Witch of the Waste and Suliman the kings magic advisor, drains the witches powers. Suliman tells Sophie that Howl’s powers will also be taken if he does not help out their side. Sophie tells Howl and Howl transforms into a birdlike creature to hide from Suliman, after Suliman attempts to trap him.

            Howl makes multiple transformations to help fight with the war, which is making it more difficult to come back to human form. Sophie and Howl have become very close and is scared that he will leave them. Sophie also fears that Howl will lose the ability to be a human as well. Among all of the troubles occurring during the war Calcifer gets very sick and weak, after eating a bug that creates the castle to be visible.

            The country is attacked and stores are being bombed. A local flowershop is almost attacked before Howl saves it. After this he saves Calcifer and takes Calcifer from the fire ruining the castle. Howl is also very sick and Sophie cares for him and Calcifer. Sophie offers Calcifer a piece of her hair to give him enough strength to make it a bit longer. Howl also gives a piece of his hear to the dying demon to help save him. The Witch of the Waste grabs the heart and burns it in her hand. Sophie pours water on the burning heart and Calcifer loses his powers for good.  Sophie learns of how Howl and Calcifer meet; Howl eats Calciefer and gains his heart. Sophie finds Howl near death in bird form. She runs to the witch and asks for Howls heart. She gets the heart gives it to Howl and frees Calcifer. She thanks the scarecrow for his help and he reveals that he is the prince. Everyone flies off together happily after the war has ended.

            What ultimately drew me to this film was the imagery in the film. When you see the castle for the first time your breath is truly taken away. The film is filled with amazing shots and proves that cinematography can apply for animated films as well. Princess Mononoke is a phenomenal example of beautiful cinematography. Both films have amazing images, of simple fields with grass blowing in the wind or of phenomenal structures and buildings. Both films also show amazing images of just the characters faces, their hair blowing in the wind in a melodramatic way. Even though these films are animated we still see the emotional depth on the faces of the characters.

            There are obvious similarities between Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke, they are both anime films by Miyazaki. Both films show a high power, such as a wizard and a God who is given much control over the world these people live in.  Howl is a powerful wizard that has many people look up to him. Just as the Dear God and Lady Eboshi. Power is something that gets to the head of Lady Eboshi and something that creates a feud between Irontown and the forest. Conflict is something that we see in cinema now and something that has been and will be in film until movies are not made anymore.

            Another obvious connection is the slight love story that is in both Howl’s Moving Castle and Princess Mononoke is the relationships between our protagonists. Sophie and Howl have a spark and a need to care for one another and feel the need to protect each other. Ashitaka and San though they are on opposite sides of the war their own people are fighting they care for one another even though their own separate sides of a war.

            Animals are a main theme in both of these films as well. San was literally raised by wolves and acts more as an animal than the human that she truly is. Howl morphs into different animals throughout the film. Animals are symbols of a new type of creature and even a new form of communication, this can be a barrier between two worlds that aren't communicating well. This is a theme not only with the animalistic ways of Howl and San but of the problems with communication between the two worlds that fight in both films.   

            This film heavily reminded me of The Wizard of Oz. Sophie a young woman who is gentle and kind reminds me of Dorothy Gale, the protagonist of The Wizard of Oz. The Witch of the Waste is in some way envious of Sophie’s beauty and youth, just like how the Wicked Witch of the West seeks revenge on Dorothy. Though the Wicked Witch of the West doesn't seek the youth of Dorothy she does want her dead after the accidental death of her sister. After Sophie is cursed and becomes an old woman she wonders off to the Wastes and encounters a scarecrow, who is alive, just like the scarecrow that Dorothy meets on her way to Oz. After Sophie is cursed she and the scarecrow go to Howl’s castle to have him reverse the spell, which is similar to Dorothy going to Oz to meet the Wizard and to send her home.  Also given that Howl’s castle moves is a metaphor of some sort for the Dorothy’s home moving from Kansas to Oz. Sophie also returns home on the plane just as Dorothy does on the hot air balloon. 

            In conclusion both films are similar not only because of the director and the fact that they are anime films but they both feature such similar films. Both feature a fantastical element and a true story of fighting and war. Conflict comes into play with these films and they show how much communication truly matters, not only in speak but in how they act and go through the way of leadership. 

Blossay 2: China Gender Politics

            For this blossay I wanted to focus on the gender politics of the four films that we watched for this unit. These films to me showed women in a completely new light. We got to see women as more prominent characters in these films, we saw them as people versus women who need to be saved, or as a nagging girlfriend. We see the oppression of women in China and how they grew as women.

            In Yellow Earth we see a young woman; some may even consider her to still be a girl. Cuiqiao is just fourteen years old. Though she is so young she cares so much for her father, she acts like she is his wife. In a modern American setting Cuiqiao would be cared for as a child and not taking care of her father because of the gender boundaries.  Cuiqiao is sold in the film; she is sold to marry a wealthy older family. Cuiqiao’s family has suffered financially after the engagement of her older brother and the funeral of her mother. Cuiqiao needs to be sold at such a young age so that her family can begin saving for her younger brothers future engagement. Given that Cuiqiao is only being sold so that her brother can eventually buy his bride shows the cycle that women were thrown in. Cuiqiao is an example of how younger women felt oppression in some way.

            Raise the Red Lantern shows the complexities of women and relationships between women. In this film we see a man and his four wives. The husband or the master is in scenes with his four wives yet his face is never shown. What I thought of is how did a man get to this degree of power? How can a man have four wives and not have people bat an eye? Meishan has an affair with the doctor and is hung because of this. Her betrayal causes her death, even though she feels betrayed when her master chooses to spend the night with another wife. The master does not get in trouble because of his power and of him being a man. This to me seems to be a double-standard.

            The concept of concubines is so baffling to me in how everything was arranged. Having concubines reminds me of polygamous families. Marriage is an act of partnership, having one man split his time between four wives is not fair to the wives, or to the children he has with them. Having a woman be just one of the wives isn’t fair to that woman or to women at all.  

            All four wives have distinct personalities and all have their own different and unique stories. We see four wives varying in age and in life experience.  We see women that have children, women who were forced into marriage. We see a young woman who is wife number five enter the home which starts a fresh new cycle.

            Raise the Red Lantern features a power struggle between the wives and the housekeeper, Chen. Songlian fights with her and takes her own power on Chen. Watching a female power struggle was a new  feature and shows the different roles that women have in film and during this time in China. Songlian takes her power in such an interesting way, she wants to take advantage of the power that she given now that she is a concubine.

            Farewell my Concubine features gender in a new way than in other films that we see. I thought that watching a man play a woman for a huge portion of the film made the experience so different. Dieyi plays a woman in the opera and plays the wife of Xiaolou on stage and ends up gaining those feelings for Xiaolou. Dieyi is feminine as a character and when in makeup as the queen it is hard to tell if Dieyi is male or female.  

            Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is a film that shows women with skill and as an enemy. Jade Fox is the enemy of this film. She is the best of the best in the world of fighting. Having a woman that is so great shows a female power. Fox also uses her power to train Jen to create another woman to be as talented as she is. Seeing women as fighters that can beat and win against men is great and shows how women can be seen as equals and even as superiors to men. Jade Fox though she is a powerful woman, she cannot read which holds her back. Jade Fox fears that Jen will be able to read and study on how to improve and become a better fighter. Showing Jade Fox as one that cannot read is a subtle way to show how a woman that is so strong and so powerful is weak and even lesser than men. I thought that this was an interesting concept to bring into the film but that it showed how women are weaker in this time.

            These films reflect the times that the films were set in.  Yellow Earth was set in the early years of when the communists took over. Raise the Red Lantern was set in the early 1920’s a time when it was common for a man to have many wives and concubines. Farewell my Concubine  spans over fifty-three years from 1924-1977, this shows the Japanese invasion and the lives of Dieyi and Xiaolou. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon  is set in 1779 during the Qing Dynasty, which shows this way of living and the relationships of the character.

            Power is a struggle that we see in all four of these films. Yellow Earth shows how quickly one can be torn out of the family home just by your gender. Cuiqiao is sent away from the home and is sold to be the wife of an older man. Raise the Red Lantern is a story of power from the get go. We see a man a husband who is also called a master, he is the husband of four women, but they refer to him as the master. We also see a power struggle between Songlian and her servant. The power struggle is so intense that her servant eventually dies. Farewell my Concubine shows a power struggle through the beginning of the film. We see the schooling that the boys go through and how much they were abused by their own mentors. Seeing a power struggle between men of different ages versus a power struggle between men and women was an interesting twist. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon has a variety of power differences the one I noticed most when Jen got her comb stolen from Lo. Lo keeps her captive and holds the comb over her head. He uses the power of her wanting it back to keep her with him. That power struggle and dominance of Jen wanting that comb back added passion and dedication to the film.

            Marriage is another theme that all of these films share, probably given how gender plays a role in each film. Each film features a woman who is either married, or in the process of an arranged marriage. We see women entering hesitantly and some are forced to marry. Marriages in these films show the difference in gender. Marriage touches each film in a different way. We see women affected by marriage in good and bad ways. In Farewell my Concubine Juxian and Xiaolou marry and cause Dieyi to be very upset. When Juxian is revealed to be a whore and Xiaolou reacts poorly Juxian is upset and eventually commits suicide. This shows how marriage can be a negative influence in the lives of women.

            All of these films also show how unequal women truly are. We see women treated poorly and at times just as a number. When I looked at the Wikipedia article for Raise the Red Lantern it named the wives of the master by number, which made me feel like these women lost their identity.  Women are also rarely seen as superiors or even as equals. This contributed to the gender politics that are featured in these films and even in society as well. 

Hong Kong Blossay

Hong Kong Masculinity:

Fists of Fury

In Fists of Fury Bruce Lee is shown as a manly man, not only to audiences in Hong Kong but with American and Western audiences as well.  Lee was swift and a great fighter in Fists of Fury, with that he was able to make it as an American action star as well. Lee started the trend that many Asian leading men followed.

Men in this film are shown as tough guys that solve their problems with beating up others and frightening others.  Lee fights with the other characters as a way to get out his anger. In the process of him being a masculine man in audiences around the world he is also hurting others and being overly violent.  The new wave of masculinity in Hong Kong men could’ve caused the use of heavy violence and multiple deaths in this film.

Drunken Master

            Jackie Chan is an action icon, most people have seen a Jackie Chan film or have at least have heard of a Jackie Chan film. The film that starred Jackie Chan and began his journey of a leading man was Drunken Master.

 Chan stars as a young man that is often getting in trouble because of his violence. Chan is showed as a tough and masculine man. He is a good fighter which is what gets in trouble in the film. In the film Chan is beaten in a fight by a woman, his aunt. This puts a damper on his ego and makes him feel weaker. Chan’s character may even feel like his masculinity was taken away after a woman beats him in a fight.

A Better Tomorrow

This film shows a new type of masculinity versus what we saw in other films. This film involved guns, gangsters and a taste of urban life. Gangster and gun fighting is introduced to us in this film, since previous films showed us kung-fu fighting and more combat and fighting without weapons.

Though this film shows masculine men it also shows the intimate and close personal friendships that men share. Ho and Mark are more affectionate than other male friendships shown in American films.  This had audiences question if Mark and Ho had a homosexual relationship.  Both the men are very masculine, great fighters and tough. These men have such a close friendship and some even say they act more like a family. The question is if they are so affectionate with one another can they be masculine men? Masculinity in many cultures is being tough and not having many emotions. When Ho and Mark interact they talk to each other with love, both men care deeply for each other and share emotions during their exchanges.

In Stringer’s chapter she discusses the use of male relationships in A Better Tomorrow as a basis to her study on masculinity in the films of John Woo. Stringer talks on the relationships between not only the men we see on screen but on the relationships between violence and suffering and how men react to it.

The article “The Man’s Film” discusses the rareness of seeing men in intimate relationships in American cinema. A Better Tomorrow is one of the central points of this article and is brought up as a film that shows the intimate friendship between two men. Gates discusses the relationship with Ho and his brother Kit, versus’ Ho’s relationship with Mark. Gates discusses how emotional the conversations between Ho and Mark get, and how their eyes fill with tears. In my Gender, Ethnicity and Communication class we discussed crying and how men often never cry in front of people. The fact that these men cry during their interactions show how much they care for one another. It is rare to see a man cry in a film in America, crying is often associated with being weak. The fact that tears were shed in a gangster film fascinated me and made me look at the film differently.

Fallen Angels

            This film has a female lead which is a rare thing in films from Hong Kong. The role of the agent, a woman changed the dynamic of the film. The agent added a more emotional aspect to the film given her attachment to the hit man Wong. The agent has some masculine qualities as in her lack of constant communication (something that is proven in studies that I have read in my Gender, Ethnicity and Communication class). After reading about masculinity in films in the Asian world I realized that the term masculinity makes me think about men right away, eliminating women. Masculinity is meant to be associated with men but women can also have masculine qualities as well.

            The agent is emotionally invested in Wong. She really cares for him and wants to be with him in some way. Her investment in him is slowly damaging her and ruining her judgment. Wong is not emotionally invested in the agent at all, he does not want to be connected to her and proves this by sleeping and being with Blondie. Wong is a manly, tough masculine man like other men that we have seen in this class.

            We also see the mute, Ho Chi Moo and his relationship with Charlie. Ho Chi Moo is a mute and displays signs of minimal responses, something that we have discussed in my Gender, Ethnicity and Communication class as well. Obviously it is not Ho Chi Moo’s choice to be unable to communicate, but he shows classic displays of being more masculine. When we first see Charlie and Ho Chi Moo together, she is crying and resting on him and he looks disinterested and uncomfortable. He resists showing his emotional interest at first, which may be because he wanted to appear a masculine man. After they develop a relationship the roles reverse and Ho Chi Moo is more emotional and Charlie becomes more masculine.

           

All Films

            All of the Hong Kong films that our class watched this semester features one thing, violence. Violence plays as much of a character as the actors and is an integral part of the story. Violence is shown as a component of being masculine, not only in Hong Kong films but in American films as well. The violence in all of these films was mainly a product of the leading men trying to show their masculinity. The violence in these films lead to severe injuries and in some cases death. In my Gender, Ethnicity and Communication Class we talk about how men communicate differently with other men and in general. We have talked about how men are more aggressive not only in their speech but in their physical actions as well.

            Women are rarely used in films that we have viewed in class. In Fists of Fury we see women treated poorly by men and as unequal characters to the men. Chiao Mei is seen as a damsel in distress, she is constantly being belittled and is in need to being rescued throughout the film.  Hsiao Mi is also shown as an abuser to women and uses them as sex-objects and as slaves in some sense. In one scene a girl is serving Hsiao Mi tea and spills some water on the table. After this Hsiao Mi flicks cigarette ashes on the girl and burns her. He did this to show off not only his financial power as a sign of financial status but also to show off how he was a strong and masculine man. This film also opens up with a woman being assaulted in the first five minutes. This sets a tone that the men were a bit arrogant and selfish and that the women were weaker and more submissive.

            Overall these films show how masculinity has changed in Asian films and how masculinity is represented in films that we have watched. All four films feature men, violence, power and control. I have learned a lot from these films and I plan on looking at masculinity in East Asian cinema in future films that we watch.