Ang Lee is very good at expressing emotions through food in films, which may be the ability cultivated by the Chinese people's food culture for thousands of years. Confucius said: "Food, sex, sex," and "eating men and women, people's great desires", in the two films "Eat Men and Women" and "The Wedding Banquet", the performance is particularly prominent.
"The Wedding Banquet" tells the story of Gao Weitong, a Taiwanese man who immigrated to the United States, his gay American Simon, and Gu Weiwei, a mainland girl who wants to get a U.S. green card. Gao Weitong is under pressure from his parents to get married. , Simon came up with an idea to get Gao Weitong and Gu Weiwei to fake marriage, so that he could not only give an explanation to the Gao family's parents, but also allow Gu Weiwei to get a green card, so that he could officially work in the United States and continue his dream of painting. Then Gao Weitong and Gu Weiwei, with the help of their parents and elders, held a Chinese-style wedding banquet, which "witnessed the Chinese people's five thousand years of sexual suppression."
"Diet Men and Women" tells the story of the Zhu family's father and three daughters, relying on a weekly family Sunday dinner to maintain emotional connection. At the dinner table, everyone announced their own important events, until the Zhu family's father announced that he would Leaving this home and starting a new career with a lover who is twenty years younger than me, everyone finally lives a life that they are satisfied with, and is no longer constrained to eat dinner under the same roof that has more form and connotation than emotional needs.
Eating: Form and Emotion
The understanding of Chinese food culture runs through Ang Lee's films. "Food Men and Women" focuses on daily family banquets, while "The Wedding Banquet" is one of the most important banquets in Chinese life, the wedding banquet. The protagonist of the family banquet is the family, and the wedding banquet is made for others to see and for the guests to eat. These are the two directions of the two films' interpretation of food culture, one for internal and one for external.
"The Wedding Banquet" pushes the plot to a climax through a grand and lively wedding banquet. It is a very formal banquet. The bride and groom have become the objects of everyone's amusement, and they have no autonomy from beginning to end. Food as the medium of emotional communication between the Zhu family in "Eat Man and Woman", although it also has a certain form, but more important is the sense of ceremony. Everyone announces their major life events at the dining table, the second child buys a house, the third child is pregnant, and the first one suddenly gets married , Zhu's father also announced that he was going to sell his house, and took his young lover, the neighbor, and his daughter's college classmate Jin Rong to live his own life. "Diet Men and Women" was pushed to a climax in the fire-like love affair of Zhu's father's old house.
In "Eat Men and Women", food is an emotional expression, and it is also a symbol of desire throughout the film, "eating men and women, people's great desire", "food sex is also". Food is the direct embodiment of the fireworks in the world, and the hot worldly life is also brought out of the camera. After the death of his wife, Dad Zhu guarded his three unmarried daughters for more than ten years. At the beginning of the film, Dad Zhu, who was already at retirement age, had a degraded taste. At the end of the film, when he was eating the meal made by his second daughter, he suddenly tasted it. One loss and one gain in the sense of taste corresponds to the restart of Lao Zhu's life, and it has become more interesting again. He left the old house without hesitation, and moved to a new house with his wife, and his wife was pregnant, and he will be a father again.
Father Zhu's preparation of Sunday dinner is also a very ceremonial event for him; but in the life without a partner and his daughters are busy with their own lives, although Father Zhu can follow the procedures and serve the dishes with dignity At the dining table, he who has lost his sense of taste, this kind of life is also boring. He was busy alone, slaughtering chickens and ducks, cooking soup, steaming, frying, and frying. The table for four was full, but no one was happy. The atmosphere at the table was quite embarrassing. The faces of the three sisters A pair of reluctant will. The first one who wanted to escape such a life was the second child, who used all his savings to buy a house and announced at the dining table that he was about to move out of the house; then the third child, who became pregnant unexpectedly at the age of twenty. By marrying and having children, she started her new life; the most unexpected thing was the eldest, who was in her thirties and had not received a love letter. She turned to religion to seek spirituality in her anger at the hopelessness of love. Consolation, cover up your inner longing for love and a new life with the innocence of a nun's posture. She told the second child justly and sternly that this home is everything to her father. She understands that she wants to protect this home that he has worked hard for half his life with his father. As a result, after being hit by love, she used a In a frantic and impatient posture, he sat behind her husband's Harley motorcycle and left home amid the roar of the motorcycle. What the third child announced at the dinner table was her pregnancy, and the elder one announced her marriage. As a Christian, facing her and her lover’s fiery lust, the solution she thought of was to get married quickly. In church, she didn’t notify anyone. Only through this sense of "allowance" can we live a married life. A serious boss with a funny and cute way of entering into marriage.
On the other hand, Chef Wen, a colleague who worked with Dad Zhu for many years, suddenly passed away, and Dad Zhu suddenly realized that life is too short, and it seems that he can no longer live in such a messy way, but how does Dad Zhu save his old age life crisis? After the neighbor of Zhu's family and the eldest college classmate Jin Rong came back from the United States, Jin Rong's daughter Shanshan unexpectedly became a new consolation for Zhu's father. Zhu's father made a lunch for Shanshan, a meal that his three daughters did not want to see. It has become a feast for elementary school student Shanshan to be envied by all her classmates at noon every day at school. Dad Zhu's life finally got a head start. He made a big lunch for Shanshan every day, and he was very motivated. There are many scenes of Dad Zhu going to the sauna and massage. He wants to maintain his physical function and is eager to regain his youth and vitality.
Sex: Repression and Release
In "The Wedding Banquet", director Ang Lee made a fool of himself and said a crucial sentence in the bridal chamber of the wedding banquet: "You will see the result of five thousand years of sexual repression in China."
At the wedding banquet, everyone coaxed Gao Weitong to kiss the bride. Gao Weitong's classmates played tricks on the newlyweds again and again. The bride was blindfolded, and the young men took turns to kiss the bride's cheek and let the bride identify the groom. The guests at the wedding banquet fell into a lewd carnival, knocking on the wine glasses and booing from their mouths. Wave after wave of sound pressure to the bride and groom. After the toasting session, everyone got drunk on each other, couldn't tell the difference between east and west, didn't distinguish between north and south, and slumped on the sofa.
Originally, the fake marriage was the idea of Gao Weitong's lover. If Simon knew that a traditional Chinese wedding would look like this, I'm afraid it would be difficult for him to accept such a big scene. A wedding that celebrates the succession of the Gao family's lineage, the wedding banquet was full of sexual innuendos, and everyone finally had a bridal chamber, until the two got into the quilt and threw all their clothes out before they left without a word. Under Gu Weiwei's initiative, Gao Weitong and Gu Weiwei still had a sexual relationship. Originally, the whole wedding was a show for parents, relatives and friends, but when everyone left, the fake show was really done. This lays the groundwork for the dramatic ending of the movie, and it is also a compromise for the story itself. Gao Weitong compromised with his parents and showed them a fake marriage. The plot of the movie itself required a compromise, allowing Gao Weitong to have sex with Gu Weiwei. Being able to get pregnant fulfilled the wishes of Gao's parents - the fake marriage was fake, but the grandson was real; it was also a compromise of Gao's father. Gao's father met Simon alone and said that he knew they were fake marriages, but in order to be able to I have grandchildren, and I am willing to cooperate with them.
Sexual orientation is not the focus of attention in "The Wedding Banquet" at all, and it also provides a solution for parents to deal with their homosexual children: as long as they can inherit the family, it is not unacceptable to like the same sex.
Gao Weitong had been repressed for many years and concealed his parents' sexual orientation. Gao's father agreed with Simon and treated Simon as his own son. He wished Simon a happy birthday. He said, "Simon cooks, I wash the dishes." In fact, Gao's father was trying to experience the feelings of the two men through actions. Gao Weitong and Simon lived together, and the two Men cook, wash dishes, and clean, but Gao's father never does these things. Gao's mother came back late after going shopping. He sat at home and did nothing but blamed her. Gao's father put down his big man. Doctrine, turned a blind eye to this deception that could have sparked the "War of the Century", and neither lost a son nor gained a grandson.
Love: From Dilemma to Perfection
In "The Wedding Banquet", the protagonist of this wedding is passively at the mercy of his parents, relatives and friends from beginning to end, and the guests who come do not know who is at the banquet, which reflects the excessive interference of parents with their children. To hold a banquet, it is not Gao Weitong, but Gao Weitong's parents. The point is to be happy for Gao's parents, not the two married people. Getting married means starting a family and starting a business. However, in the eyes of his parents, Gao Weitong will always be a child. Gao's mother habitually picks up her baby son's arm when she is happy, and asks Gao Weitong to get up. Gao's mother also touches him directly. The room woke him up.
When Gao's father talked to Gao Weitong about why Weitong must inherit the family, he also mentioned another thing, that is his betrayal of the family. The father of the Gao family was an officer in the past, and his former subordinates called him division commander when he saw him. Teacher Gao told Weitong that he ran away from home because he was dissatisfied with the marriage arranged by his parents. He never thought that he would never be able to go back once he left. He took root overseas. This is to make Weitong understand his painstaking efforts. , understand the marriage has been urged on him.
In "Diet Men and Women", Dad Zhu finally decided to abandon this family relationship that was maintained by hard food, and it was also under the stimulation of his three daughters and the impact of the death of his peers. The eldest daughter always likes to say "don't joke" about her feelings, whether it's her own or her father's. It seems that her father is old and should no longer have the passion for life. In the face of her own feelings, she uses fantasies to maintain her self-esteem. , to keep the secret that he has never been loved, but in the love letter thing that the students spoofed, he can no longer restrain himself, and the rules have become absurd decoration. away from home.
"Diet Men and Women" wrote a lot of personal feelings but did not write any wedding. "The Wedding Banquet" wrote a grand wedding, but it was a warm farce. Director Ang Lee based on Chinese food culture, in these two films The implicit and enthusiastic side of Chinese people is very wonderful, and the food and sex, from form to emotion, jointly interpret the gradual process of Chinese eroticism from tradition to modernity.
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