Forget Paris

            I still remember that when I was young, I did have the chance to watch those fantasy movies like Cinderella, Snow White etc.  All of those stories have one common theme which always portray the ending with a happy ending by showing that both the lead male and female actor will live happily ever and after.  As an audience, sometimes we will be curious on the what would be their life after the story end; however, the story always just end there and did not further explain the story.  Forget Paris is another story that emphasize on the life after married of a couple.  Forget Paris is

Summary

            Mickey is a professional referee who travels to France to bury his father.  In the process, he met Ellen who works in the Airline that handling the shipping of the Mickey’s father coffin to the Paris.  Their meeting occurred as the Airline had lost Mickey’s father during the travel; with it he had the chances to meet Ellen in helping Mickey to locate and retrieve the coffin.  Their started fall in love in a short while and even Mickey decided to delay his flight in order to have the chance to spend time with Ellen.  However, every sweet moment should have an end when Mickey was forced to return back to his country for the NBA.

            The returnment of Mickey had caused him to miss the chance to be with Ellen as she had married.  Mickey could not give up on Ellen and even lose his temper during his job that lead to him being suspended by NBA, so he decided to flew back to Paris to find Ellen.  The truth had shocked him as Ellen got married but separated; however, he is unsure whether Ellen will get back together with her husband or not. 

            At last, Ellen got divorced with her husband and quit her job in France and got married with Mickey.  They had spent a honeymoon period like they had in the past in the Paris when they had met.  After the honeymoon period, Mickey went to back work and Ellen takes an entry-level service job.  Ellen started to feel lonely and depressed as she hated her new job and she could only saw Mickey a few days in a month.  Ellen forced Mickey to quit his job and he compromise by taking a one-year leave of absence and started to working as a car seller. 

            Mickey was very unhappy with his new job and need to stay at home to take care of Arthur, Ellen’s father.  He revealed that he wanted to go back to become referee as he love his job very much.  However, as Ellen had climb up to the management and had been offered a transfer to Dallas, but Mickey refuse it.  As a result, Ellen decided to take on the offer to transfer to Paris.  Now, both of them did not have the chances to spend time with one and another as Mickey was busy with his NBA tour and Ellen was working in Paris. 

            Both of them could not stand the loneliness and the empty feeling without the company of the others.  Mickey decided to run to Paris to find Ellen and before he make it to the airport, he saw Ellen in the arena.  Both of them meet and reconcile at the middle of the court and decided to be together again. 

Analogy of Marriage

            I always heard that people describe marriage as ½ + ½ = 1.  However, I think that this analogy is incorrect in describing marriage.  This is because I believe that every individual should be a complete person but not a half person.  Marriage is a combination of two complete people who hope to life together.  Recently, I had heard another analogy in describing marriage which is the companions in the journey of life.  I tends to believe that this analogy is more suitable in describing it as I believe that a couple in a marriage is a companion who can company one and another to walk in their journey of life which contains a lot of up and downs.  I believe that there is no one single life is smooth and there is always up and downs that people need to experience and marriage allows the people to have someone in accompanying to pass through it. 

Myths of Couplehood

Marriage is not the only option that we have in order to keep going in life.  Being

single is not the bad things; however, I believe that rushing into marriage without proper planning is worse.  This is because we may have not prepare physical and mentally in stepping into marriage and this may lead to us to blame on it later in life.  As a result, it is advised that people need to focus on our journey before finding a companion.  Finding a companion is not the only thing that we need focus in our life.  I tend to believe that if a person who have live a full and complete live are more likely to succeed in getting the right partner later in life. 

            People who live an empty life tends to dependent and place unreasonable expectations on their behalf.  It is important that people do no start their relationship due to loneliness or other factors unless we think that we have ready to step in it.  People should not always have the idea to seek for perfect compatible mate as the criteria in seeking future partner.  There is no one who are perfectly compatible with one and another; as every people are brought up differently with different culture of background, personality, values and etc.  I believe that perfect mate should be the one who can adapt and compromise with one another by understanding what is the difference between the couple and empower the strength of the couple to minimize the conflict and gap between them. 

            In a conclusion, I think that communication is a very important element in a couplehood relationship.  Almost all the conflict start by having assumption.  People should not assume what other people think on the issue as it may not the truth.  Couple should also leave each other some space so that they are not stress with the close and intimate attachment. 

Why Mickey and Ellen had so many conflicts?

            Mickey and Ellen always argue with one and another as they always have high expectations both of them had of each other, as they would always highlight their magical week in Paris, and would say how both of them had changed so much since the time they first met. Because of this, their current relationship was neglected leaving it to crumble because of Mickey and Ellen’s lack of focus on their current situation at hand.  Their relationship did not work well was because of the high expectations coupled with wrong intentions held by both Mickey and Ellen. Why I say wrong intentions is because when the two met each other, both of them were at their lowest points in their lives with Mickey struggling with his career, and Ellen separating from her husband. When one gets into a relationship in order to conceal the wounds of past pains, the outcome can be less than ideal especially if both partners are not willing to work with each other in order for both parties to grow and heal from their past wounds.  That’s why I believe that high expectations and only focus on the past is the factors that may lead to conflict between the couples.  Couple who always focus in the past may not move forward and may tend to blame on the other half for not having this and that. 

Conclusion

            In a nut shell, this movie had taught me the importance of communication in working on the relationship.  Relationship is not one-sided and it always need both parties to work hard together to pass through all the up and downs.  In the end, just like any other kind of relationship, if we want to make it successful, it would require a lot of work from both partners with communication being key to success. 

Strictly Ballroom

            Musical movie is always one type of the movie that capture my attention.  This is because musical movie had broken my stereotype toward the typical movie that only focus on the acting but it also emphasis on music elements.  High School Musical Series was the first time I started in be in touch with musical series movie.  Soon later, I started to fall in love into this similar type of movie.  I thought that the first musical movie that I had watched is the first release of the similar movie in the history.  This perception stays in my head until that day, I get the chance to watch Strictly Ballroom.  Then only I realize that musical movie had already started release in the 90 centuries. 

Summary

            Strictly Ballroom is a romantic comedy film that talks about how an Australian ballroom dancer, Scott struggles to establish his style of dance that he had invented to win the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix Dancing Championship.  The style of dance that he had invented had not been recognized by anyone as the people think that he is against the rule that Australian Dancing Federation had set.  Only one of the girl, Fran, a beginner dancer who just start to learn dancing in Scott parents’ studio that support Scott decision and thinks that his style of dance is better than the normal step that everyone is following and had made an offer to dance with him.  However, Scott reject Fran’s offer to dance with her as he thinks that she did not have the qualification to dance with him as he started to dance since young and had become a professional dancer unlike Fran as a beginner.  After a lot of up and downs, Scott finally had taken on the chances to dance with Fran in the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix and forget about the winning the competition.  Lastly, the action that they done in the competition had grant them a lot of recognition from the people in the crowd that means a lot to Scott and Fran which are heavier than winning the competition. 

            In this movie, it had well demonstrated on how social influence had impact on people life.  There are three main components in social influence which are compliance, conformity, and obedience. 

Compliance

            Compliance is defining as change of one’s behaviours because of other people’s directing or asking for change.  The change may not involve a change in attitudes or beliefs of another person.  Compliance is developed by three factors which are mood, reciprocity, and reasons.  This is demonstrated in the film when the Liz complies to Scott with his new steps in taking part in a dancing competition.  This can be showed that Liz did not agree with Scott decision as she blames on Scott for being so disobedience and did not follow the rule that are set by the Australian Dancing Federation that lead to lose in the competition.  Liz are forced to complies to what Scott desired in as there are limited time left to decide on whether did she want to follow to Scott’s step and also there is rule that female dancing partner should follow the male dancing partner in dancing. 

            Besides that, Scott also comply to the rule in following the rule that are set by the authority.  At first, he was not convinced by the influence of authority, his mother as he believed that it was against his principles in dancing.  However, Barry, the presidents of Australian Dancing Federation told Scott the fake story to trigger his emotion to persuade him to dance with Liz with the official step.  At the end of the story, Barry even “beg” Scott to win the champion to help his father to make the dream come true that his father had lost the opportunity when he was young.  In the end, Scott comply to Barry as he thinks that by helping his father to realize the dream is more important than dancing on his own style.  This shows how mood, reciprocity, and reason become the factors that why Scott will comply to Barry’s instruction. 

Conformity

            Conformity is the tendency that people alter their behaviour because of group pressure.  People will change their own behaviour to match with the rest.  In the film, it shows that most of the dancer in the movie tends to conform to the rule if they want to stand a chance to win.  People will not against the rule and against the norm as it may result them to be the odd one and may lost the chance to win the competition.  In the worsen condition, it may also result in the dancer to lose their career life as a dancer. 

            Moreover, conformity level tends to increase when there has confident confederate.  This is shows when all the dancer tends to dance according to the rule except Scott and Fran as the appearance that Barry shown to the audience is so powerful and confident that cause the people to be afraid to go against him.  However, in the last scene of the movie, Scott’s father, Doug stand up and clapped for the performance for Scott and Fran had been performed in front of all the audience in the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix competition.  His action had influence all the audience stood up and clapped for Scott and Fran.  This conformity demonstrate on how the minority can influence on the majority with the criteria that the minority need to highlight a great confidence and consistency in his action. 

Obedience

            Obedience is an action that follow the authority by the an individual.  It is demonstrated in the movie when Fran was threatened by Scott’s mother, Shirley to go away and left Scott to dance with Tina or Liz so that he gets the chance to win the competition.  The appearance of Shirley had demonstrated obedience by Fran as Shirley is the authority that had the higher power in deciding things that forced people to believe in her. 

            Aside from that, Barry also tends to be the authority figure that portrays a powerful person that give instruction to the people.  With it, the people will then follow the instructions that are given by Barry blindly.  People will not investigate on the reason behind on why the authority figure had come to the decision in given these instructions to them. 

Why it is named Strictly Ballroom?

            The director decided to name the movie as Strictly Ballroom and dancing is the main elements in the movie.  This is because dancing is one the expressing art where people can showcase their state of minds freely; however, ballroom dancing is one type of dance that allows the dancer to dance freely with a certain condition.  Past research did found out that dance is associate to confidence, mate-selection and social bonding.  Strictly Ballroom might indicate that dancer who dance in the ballroom is being stereotype within a set of rules unlike street dancer who can express freely without any restriction. 

Impact

            In this movie, the main message that are being sent to the audience is how social influence had plays an important role in influence people.  As mentioned in the above, I did explain on how the social influence is playing the important role in the movie.  Aside from that, there is also one sentence that wake me up as an individual which is “A Life Lived In Fear Is A Life Half-Lived”.   This states that people who always have the fear in his or her heart will always stop him or her in stepping forward so it is no longer can be consider as living in a meaningful life.  This has reminded me that people should not be coward and should always tried our best to do anything that we intended to no matter what is the final outcomes of the actions.   There is always stereotype that people have toward us and have a lot of opinion that they have and hope that we can follow.  This might stop us from trying that may lead us to regret on not grabbing the chance to trying in the future. 

            This sentence also reminds me that once I have a friend said that “if we did not do it when we are still young, then when we will have the chance to do it later in life”.  This has encouraged me to do many things that I used not dare to do in the past and has resulted me who I am today.  Being an introvert, I always do not dare to step out from the comfort zone but with this encouragement, I started to stepped out from the comfort zone and know more people by joining club and society.  With this experience, this had help me to know a lot of precious friend that can help me and guide me when I was down.  I think that I would regret if and only if I did not dare to follow my heart in doing things that I want to. 

Conclusion

            In a conclusion, I think that people should never be afraid of making a change or simply being different than everybody else.  Conformity is not a must to be a bad social influence, but it is definitely not a wise choice in letting conformity to get in the way being an obstacle of achieving something which we believe in.  

Eat Drink Man Woman

Eat Drink Man Woman is a Taiwanese film directed by Ang Lee and distributed in the 1994.  Ang Lee, one of the well-known Chinese directors who famously known by his Hollywood sensational movie ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’, has perfectly portrayed the concerns of conflicting familial relationships as well as a culture of suppressing one’s personal thoughts and feelings with extravagant traditional Chinese cuisine as a portrayal medium in this movie. The main two elements in this movie is the food and man-woman relationship.  Food as one of the essential element that keep us alive had been used in the movie as one of the symbol to portray family unity whereby all the family member will eat together every Sunday.  I think it is a brilliant idea of using this scene as it seems to be simple yet important medium to illustrate the most typical Asian family’s culture.  For example, my family also practice this culture that whenever we are having dinner together we need to wait for all the arrival of the family member before starting to have the meal.  As the Chinese New Year had just passed, it also did reminds me on the Chinese Reunion Dinner as all the family member will come back and sit together to have the meal together as the symbol of family unity. 

Summary

            ‘Eat Drink Man Woman’ (1994) tells a story of Lao Chu, autocratic single father of three daughters who is also a chef that has spent most of his time preparing and cooking incredible great-looking and mouth-watering food (even audience also feels the hunger and urge to consume those foods shown in the movie, I am one of them) in the big restaurant who has lost his sense of taste. Despite his loss, he is still a national treasure when it comes to Chinese traditional cuisine recipe and he relies most of food-testing part on his partner who is also his best friend, Wen to tell whether that dish he has made is mouth-watering or eye-watering.

He is persistent and firm of his Sunday-must-eat-together weekly dinner and insists his daughters to attend every week; however, the daughter perceived it as Sunday-torturing dinner.  In the movie, it portrayed that the purpose of having this Sunday dinner is to bring announcement.  At the beginning of this film, the daughter perceived family is not a happy place as there is some misunderstanding that happen between them and his father. There are generational conflicts between father and daughter as well as tension between sisters depicting difference of traditional expectations and desires of women seem to revolve around this family.  The main message of this movie that the director would want to pass to the audience is that the dinner table will always be the place where everyone can communicate, share their inner thoughts, and express themselves. 

Perceptions about the movie

The story portray the time settings in the early 90 where this is the period that Asian may still having the conservative mindset that when the girl reached the certain age and it is the time for them to get married.  This type of mindset can be trace back to the past when the past ancient time when the emperor dynasty still exists.  At that time, people may get married at the very young age and some may even become mother at the age of 16.  This may not have showed any big deal at that time as the role of a woman is to get married and to carry on one’s ancestral line.  However, people nowadays the role of woman had been twisted that they are no longer the child production machines and may be able to get education to get the same standard of equality as man do.  In the movie, the main character is the father who still have the old mindset that woman should get married when it is the time.  However, three daughters may not have the same thinking as the father had as they did believe in the faith that they will only get married when their Mr. Right has come.  This portrayed what current generation think about marriage as people nowadays are more heavily rely on faith as compared to the past. 

            Besides that, this movie also consistently showed some expected yet unexpected moments.  In the movie, audience tends to expect that there are some climaxes that the daughter may get married; however, the audience may not know guess the reason behind it on why they are getting married in the rush.  Not to forget the last part when the main character, Lao Chu had reveal his secret that he falls in love with his daughter’s friend and decided to get married with her.  It tells the audience that everything in the reality that there is always chance that we might get some unexpected events happen no matter how well that we have prepared for it.  It reminds people that we need to have the room for change as things may not go as what he had think about it. 

            Lastly, another main element in the movie is the man-woman relationship.  There are several kinds of relationship that are evolve around people in the world beside than sex as we known.  In the movie, it portrayed the father-daughter, siblings, sex, love, and friend relationship.  All this kind of relationship are basically the relationship that most of the people may experience it in their lifetimes.  People need to understand that whenever there is relationship, there will be conflict.  The most common conflict that people should have experienced will be the generational conflict where it usually happens between parents and children especially when the children are in teenage years when rebellion may take place.  This can be showed in the movie where the relationship between father and daughter are so tensed as both sides may not be able to understand one and another.  The misunderstanding and miscommunication may eventually become the factors that lead to conflict.  Generational conflict is common as the views of the parents and children may not be the same due to different social experience that they have faced.  I love the way this friction is portrayed in a sense that it is so real till it can be related to our social and familial environment as well. For example, l used to have some formed of conflict between my parents and me.  This happened when I was in my teenage years when my parents insist not to buy me a handheld device when it is so common in those day and everyone in the school has it except me.  There is once we had a big fight as I wanted it so badly till I even secretly bought it with the pocket money that I had saved up for quite a period of times; but, my parents had found out and decided to throw it away.  At that moment of times, I think that my parents are no longer in love of me and they are someone who are unreasonable as they did not provide any explanation.  This conflict has been unsolved and brought it forward till when I reached 18 years old where I received my first handphone.  Soon, I realized the reason behind it when my parents insist for not giving me a handphone when I was young.  This is one of the case that I have personally experience where miscommunication may develop into conflict and luckily it had resolved. 

Conclusion

            In a nut shell, this movie had portrayed a strong message on family relationship.  As what I had understanding family by definition means the first group of people, related by blood that have the first contact with us when we step onto this Earth.  I also do believe that family is not only being grounded by the blood related by also others like friend who can be as close as family members.  The average lifespan of human is about 75 years old, but we might not have the chance that we can spend every moment with the person that are significant to us.  In short, I think that we should appreciate all the years that we have left with not only family but also the person that we think had played a crucial role in our life.  As I believed that life is so fragile that anything can happen within a spilt second.  Hence, always cherish the moments that have spent together as for tomorrow, you may not have the chance to show your love to them anymore.  

Awakenings

Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir of the same title. It illustrates the true story of British neurologist fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer, who had discovered some beneficial effects of the drug L-Dopa that may help the patients in the hospital. He administered it to one of a catatonic patient, Leonard Lowe who had survived from the epidemic of encephalitis lethargica after getting consent from the patient’s family. Leonard Lowe had awake from the disease and his successful case study had been proven to the others expertise that this drug may worked to all the other similar patients as well. After the long process of persuading the respective people, Dr. Syer managed to get the prescription to all the other patients. The miracles happened when all of the patients were awakened after decades of catatonia and have to deal with a new life in a new time. However, the story did not just end there. The effects of the drug can only be worked for a short period of time and soon later all the patients start experiencing the catatonic again and eventually reach the stage of catatonia. At this point of time, increasing the dosage of the drug is no longer effective to cure the patients. 

            This is my first watching this kind of true story that happen in the old days and did not end with a happy ending. It reminds me that in the reality that not everythings can end with a happy ending as there might be ups and downs in the life. As my dad told me before that there is no one life that can be as smooth as silk, there is always some obstacles in front that are waiting for us to overcome it. He said that people should not be afraid of failure and need to take failure into consideration as experience that we would not making the same mistake again. I believe that failure is the mother of success as it also did show in the movie that Dr. Sayer had tried several times in getting the right amount of the prescription before it worked out.  Without the several trials and the determination of Dr. Sayer, Leonard and the other patients may not be able to can be awake from the catatonia state.  From the movie, it had taught me that when there is a will, there is a way. No matter what happen, there is always way that we can solve the problem one day if we do not give up.

            Another main element that I had learnt from the movie is learn to appreciate and be grateful that we had.  The speech that Leonard Lowe had given to the hospital admins in having the freedom to come and go as he pleases had awake me some lessons that used to know. People always take things for granted and always complaint on things that they do not have; however, they do not know that everything that we are having is a gift and luck that we have compare to many others.  For example, people always think that able to achieve the physiological needs are just nothing and always seek for a higher standard and ignore it, however people do not know that this thing that we take for granted may be very important to someone who may not even be able to achieve these needs.  As a psychology student, it reminds me that depressed patients may think negative and commit suicide as they may have the thought that the world has not treated them fairly.  With the CBT, it may help them to recognise that they are not the worst cases in the world and there are always people who are currently in a more suffer stage from them but they did not give up, so do them? With the CBT, it can help the patients to create the new thought that being alive are something that are more precious as without live people are just nothing. 

            In the conclusion, I think that this movie did not just poke me up in teaching me some good life-learning lesson but also allows me to used what I learnt to help the people in need.  As helping people may also can be interpreted as blessing as well. Lastly, the lesson that I learnt from the movie may also help me in my future career, life coach in guiding the client to a better future. 

Cinema Paradiso

            Cinema Paradiso is a type of ancient movie that talked about the past in the 19^th century that describe how evolution of movie industry had change a boy’s life.  In the story, it started when the boy is a at a very young age and he had fell in love with the movies at his village’s theatre, cinema paradiso.  In the cinema theatre, he had formed a deep relationship with the theatre’s projectionist like father like friend. 

            In this movie, it did portray on how the childhood is so important in impacting a children life in the future. For example, Toto loved movie when he was young and although many people did tell him that being a projectionist is not a good job for him as he might not be able to earn high paid and need to work almost every day in an enclosed area.  Toto being a student who was quite smart should have job that are better than this.  However due to his passion to the movie and accident that Adelfio had encountered, he decided to take over the place of being a projectionist in a very young age. 

            Aside from that, another element that had impact me was the relationship that had formed between Adelfio and Toto.  Many people think that the relationship between Adelfio and Toto was friendship even Toto’s mother had the same thought.  However, I felt that Toto treat Adelfio not only as friend but also a person with father figure.  This is because Toto’s father had passed away in the war and he did not have the opportunity to spend much time with his father and the only male adult that he was closed to was Adelfio.  They share the same commonality that both of them love movie and Adelfio willing share all his experiences with Toto like father sharing their story to the children. 

            Lastly, the part that most impacting me was the last part when the Adelfio kept his promise and give all the uncensored scene to Toto when he was old enough to handle it.  This triggered me to remind on my father.  My father is a person who also always keep teaching me that a person need to keep promise and do not make a promise if we are unable to fulfilled it.  By keeping promise may indicate the person is reliable and responsible.  If the person did not be able to keep their promise, they may lose their credibility to the others and soon they might be no one in trusting us anymore.