Thoughts on Eat Drink Man Woman

Good thing that I didn't know that it was directed by Ang Lee. Otherwise, I would have anticipated the unique style of his movies. I like the fact that it starts off by showing the food, with the ingredients being used and the culinary skills displayed. That way, I was given the impression of a cooking/food movie, due to the primacy effect. While technically it wasn't wrong, but in hindsight, I felt that it was meant to mislead and distract us from the punchline that came at the end of the movie.

This movie portrays a family of one father and three daughters, with a family dynamic that is diverse and varying. These interactions can be seen similarly across real families too.

The father, Mr. Chu, has a strong traditional form of love and caring towards his three daughters. He is a man of few words, and even if he does speaks, he talks in a gruff manner. His words can seem harsh and unforgiving at times. Nevertheless, his love language is more clearly seen in the form of actions, especially in preparing food. This can be seen throughout the movie, whereby the father would prepare extravagant meals. His attitude can be explained as instrumentality behaviour, with him being assertive and independent. On the other hand, his oldest daughter, Jia Jen, perhaps showed the most expressive behaviour. To the point where I might say that she portrays the mother in Jung's archetypes. The second sister, Jia Chien, did mentioned that she adopt the mother role after their real mother passed away.

The coping mechanisms of the family are most enlightening. Here, I could use several of Freud's defence mechanisms to explain the conflicts between their id and ego. The most glaring one is the father. It is highly likely that the father is suppressing, as well as sublimating, the desires of his id. I won't spoil the twist, but at the end, we could see that he has been consciously holding back his deepest desire from everyone, excluding the party involved. The sublimation part could be said to come after this, whereby he pour his energy into a socially accepted behaviour. In his case, cooking. Being a famous Chinese chef, he has extensive skills and knowledge of cutlery. Nevertheless, he has lost his taste buds, so he can no longer test his food before serving. In such a condition, it is not ideal to continue cooking, as his food could be poisonous without him knowing. His close friend, Uncle Wen, fell ill once after tasting his food after all. Even so, he kept cooking elaborate meals still, perhaps suggesting that his strong id had to be expressed in one way or another.

The twist showed an intriguing attraction between the parties involved.  The law of attraction states that we like those who rewards us. In this scenario, we could say that opposites attract, but in terms of assets. One party could offer fertility, passion and a companionship, while the other had stability and reputation to boast about. As the research goes, we like people who are similar to us. For the two parties involved, it is difficult to ascertain whether they are similar, in terms of personality and values. But seeing as they were attract to each other, despite their obvious GENERATION differences (if you know what I mean), it may suggest that they saw something alike in each other.

Although this movie has elements that seems generic and traditional, the way the story and screenplay goes is just quirky and subtly unconventional. It is an Ang Lee movie after all. For me, the aspect of things-are-not-all-that-they-seems-to-be resonated in me. The sudden turn of events for many of the characters showed how unexpected life can be. Things may not necessarily go our way, or sometimes it goes all the way before we even realised it. We can always prepared for the worst and unexpected. But sometimes, life still manages to catch us off guard and hender us speechless.