Strictly Ballroom (1992)

‘Strictly Ballroom’ is 1992 Australian film directed by Baz Luhrmann. The film had won Australian Film Institute Award in several categories such as Costume Design, Editing, Production Design, Best Director, Best Film and Best Screenplay. The plot centered around Scott Hastings played by actor Paul Mercurio, who wanted to establish his own steps of dancing in winning Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship. Scott came from a family with history of ballroom dancers and he had been given training since he was six-years-old by his mother. However his non-ballroom steps make his mother to feel worries and anxiety of him losing the competition and his regular dancing partner leaves him for losing in one of earlier competition in film for dancing his own steps. Being stuck between passion and rules, did he complies with dancing in traditional steps or with his own favorite steps in Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship is form rest of the story.

            Under social influence, Asch's theory of conformity (1951) can be seen in the film which is about matching our attitudes and behaviors correspond with others behavior. The Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship itself is conformity since all dancers must follow same steps approved of the Australian Dance Federation. I have one doubt, how the judges are giving the marks for the contestants if all of them dance with same steps? Maybe perhaps they see the cooperation with partner and the efficiency of the steps. In the scene after Scott loses one of the competitions earlier in the film, when he asked around in his mother's dance studio whether they liked his new steps or not, everybody’s concerns were he didn’t win the competition. Those people might love Scott’s new movements, with the absence of strong personal opinions, they tend to follow conformity of other by rejecting his steps. This can be seen clearly when his best friend Wayne replied simply with “I don’t know”. In the film, Fran and Doug (Scott’s father) are the first people to break the conformity. Fran is the first one to tell Scott that she likes his new steps and become his new dancing partner. For them it’s not about winning the competition, but to have accomplishment by dancing their favorite steps in front of people. When Scott and Fran were asked to leave the stage, the whole auditorium was quit and Doug is the first one to clap for their dance followed by Fran’s old folks and thus this action break the conformity and everyone else joins them by clapping. Similar with Asch’s experiment, it took one person to start breaking the conformity and everyone else starts following. This encourages Scott and Fran to dance even without the music at the end of film.

The film also did portray the power of compliance, which is a response made in reaction to a request by others (Franzoi, 2008). In the film, Scott wanted to dance with Fran for Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship but people surrounding him especially his mother pressured him to abandon Fran and dance with Liz. He refuses her order at first, but when Barry Fife came and make up a story stating his father, Doug was once a ballroom dancer too and lose the Pan-Pacific competition for dancing his own steps. And Doug wanted Scott to not repeat his mistake and win the competition on behalf of him. Assuming this as truth, Scott eventually complies with Barry’s lie and decides to dance with Liz in Pan-Pacific competition while abandoning Fran for the sake of his father.

Yet another psychological aspect I notice in the film is obedience which is changes in one’s behavior at the order of an authority (Ciccarelli & White, 2014). This can be seen by Scott’s mother being push her son since he was six-years-old to win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship. The reason could be most probably she had been threaten by Barry that her dance studio would be lose credit and closed if Scott didn’t win the competition. And in the year 1967, she abandons her own husband and dance with Les Kendall for Pan-Pacific competition by obeying Barry’s threatening. But eventually she loses in the competition in the end. The main reason for the characters portrait in the film to obey the command or instructions from their authorities is because of fear. As there is a Spanish quote mentioned in the film, “Vivir con miedo, es como vivir a medias” which translate as “A life lived in fear is a life half lived”. This quote really inspired me and reminds me not to feel fear all for the problems I’m facing at my current stage of life. I personally liked this movie, the fact that it was the first and only kind of movie I’ve ever watched in my life. I’ll give rating 7 out of 10 for this film.

References

Asch, S. E. (1951). Effects of group pressure upon the modification and distortion of judgement. In H. Guetzkow (ed.) Groups, leadership and men. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Press.

Ciccarelli, S. K., & White, J. N. (2014). Psychology. United States of America: Pearson Education Limited.

Franzoi, S. L, (2008). Social Psychology (5th Edition).

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994)

            ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’ is a 1994 Taiwanese film directed by Ang Lee. This film received an Academy Award Nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1995. As the title suggest this film is basically about men and women’s basic desire in eating meat, drinking alcohol and having sexual pleasures. But the storyline of this film was written in appropriate family setting especially for Asian audiences. Late actor Sihung Lung stared in this film as Mr. Chu, a widowed father of three daughters.

            The film begins with as though it was a typical Chinese family in Taiwan following their own tradition which is every family members should present for Sunday Dinner. This film portrays different style in showing love compared to western where Mr. Chu didn’t speak up or tell verbally to his daughters that he loves them but he proved it by serving food to them during every Sunday Dinners and wash their cloths and arrange them in each daughter’s drawers respectively. It became a family tradition for them to do a big announcement during the Sunday Dinner. In the film, I can see few Sunday dinners but every time each member made an announcement, it will be much unexpected and will change the story line of the film to another direction.

            Talking about the first daughter, Chu Jia-Jen, she is a chemistry teacher and recently has converted to Christianity to find peace though the religion. She became a mother figure for her two younger sisters once her mother passed away. In the beginning of the film, we assume that she fails to find a romantic partner because of she was hearth broken by the serious break-up with her high school ex-boyfriend Li Kai. And she was intended to look after her father during his elder age. But towards the end of the film, it was revealed that she made-up these entire stories because she wants nobody force her to get married until she ready for that. And she did manage to find her romantic interest, Zhou Mingdao even though he is not Christian but she manages to persuade him to convert by end of the movie.

            The second daughter, Chu Jia-Chien is my favorite character among the three daughters not only because she is pretty but also she has unique personality. From the beginning, we understood that her relationship with her father is not very close and she wanted to move out from the house to a new apartment where she already invested most of her savings. She possesses the talent and passion from her father in cooking but her father did not allow her to become chef like himself but made her to become an airline executive. Even though there were so many arguments between them though out the film, it was shown clearly that both father and daughter have a special connection and caring due to most probably she looks exactly like her mother. And she proves her caring towards her father by turn down the offer of promotion to work in Amsterdam and she wants to take care of her father after both the other two daughters were move out from the house. She is one who desperately wanted to move out from house first but eventually she was the one stay until the end after everybody move out from the house including Mr. Chu by buying the house from him

            The third daughter, Chu Jia-Ning is my least favorite character in the film not only because she is immature but also she confiscated her friend’s boyfriend from her. Since the beginning of film, she is the one giving suggestions her friend on torturing the boyfriend by abandoning him and went to date with him instead of her place and sleep with him as well as carrying a baby for him. From what I observe, she tends to do things without thinking much about the consequences based on her desire. From Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis, the Id is perfectly can be used to explain her actions. Taking about Mr. Chu, at first I thought he was old and not capable for anything. I sense that he is hiding something inside by eating the lunches prepared by Liang Jin-Rong for her daughter by himself even though it’s taste bad. And he wanted all his daughters to find their own life and go separately (which he told Uncle Wen). It was twisted in the end that wanted to get married to Liang Jin-Rong and live a peaceful life with her.

            I saw application of ‘Classical Conditioning’ in one scene, where Uncle Wen tastes all the food cooked by Mr. Chu since the chief himself can’t taste it due to loss of his taste sensibility. After practicing this for quit sometime, Mr. Chu can able to perceive the taste of food by just looking at Uncle Wen’s face without Uncle Wen say anything. It is assumed that Uncle Wen’s face reaction has become Conditioned Stimulus for Mr. Chu to understand the food’s taste. And taking about the traffic scenes though out the film, my assumption is that director Ang Lee is trying to tell that life is like traffic where there will be some problems will hold us unmoved like traffic light but eventually we have to move on because the life journey won’t stop until we die.