A Review of Mona Lisa Smile and And the Spring Comes

[Xiaoxue C.]

A Review of Mona Lisa Smile and And the Spring Comes

180105 陈晓雪 Xiaoxue Chen

On the past weekend, I have seen two films. One is Mona Lisa Smile, directed by Mike Newell in 2003; the other is And the Spring Comes, in which my favorite actress— Jiang Wen Li performed, directed by Gu Chang Wei in 2007. After watching them, my mind was blown and they were definitely worth watching!

The film Mona Lisa Smile narrated a story of a beautiful, mature, independent and somewhat unconventional woman — Katherine (Julia Roberts), who was desired for freedom, fairness as well as the equality between men and women, and her teaching in Wellesley College, a traditional and conservative school. However, And the Spring Comes told a story of a woman called Wang Cai Ling (Jiang Wen Li), who was born with an ill-favored appearance but had a talent for singing operas. Thinking herself morally superior to others, Wang Cai Ling had few friends and pursued her dream of being able to sing in Paris Opera House bitterly. Although these two films narrated two different stories, they had something in common.

First of all, these two films both perfectly portrayed images of unconventional and independent women. In the film And the Spring Comes, Wang was an ordinary woman in a small backward town but she had a great dream of being able to sing in Paris Opera House, which was regarded as ridiculous in that backward town. Unwilling to be so commonplace, Wang used every trick in her bag to obtain a household register in Beijing so that she could achieve her dream more easily. Because at that time, if you were truly desired to get rid of a small backward town, the best option was to work in modern cities, such as Beijing, where you were bound to have a residence booklet otherwise you would fail without doubt.

When it came to Mona Lisa Smile, the film was set in a special period in the US, which deserved our thinking. In the 1950s, though people had frequently advocated the equality between men and women and women were entitled to receive education, the traditional and conservative force of high class existed indomitably and played an important role in people’s life. Moreover, Wellesley College was held up as a typical example of it, which civilized girls seemingly but persuaded educated girls to pick out a man and to get married after graduation instead of living their own life independently, and which stood opposite of those progressive thoughts. Seeing this, Katherine made up her mind to become an art teacher in Wellesley College and strongly expected to make a real difference in it. Even if she had no idea about how to make a change, one thing was for certain, there were plenty of challenges and difficulties waiting for her. At Katherine’s first lesson, the students that Katherine taught were so obstructive that they almost got Katherine into hot water. Nevertheless, being firm and persistent, Katherine took up the challenges bravely. Both Katherine and Wang were full of courage and pursued their dreams in spite of various difficulties. They followed their hearts instead of the crowd, which was very rare in that period.

There is one more point, Wang and Katherine were both art teachers who assisted their students heatedly. For example, in the film And the Spring Comes, Wang gave up her residence booklet in Beijing which she longed for a long time, to help her student Beibei, who had lied to Wang that she was diagnosed with cancer and was definitely to die in the near future, to take part in the singing competition in Beijing. When Beibei received an award and said:” I will keep on singing all the way until that day my eyes are closed and I will happily remember what happened today and remember all the people who helped me.” Wang burst into tears and was touched deeply by the success of Beibei.

Similar to Wang, Katherine also spared no effort to help one of her favorite students— Joan to be admitted by Law College in Yale. Moreover, when Katherine knew that Joan had the intention of turning down the admission from Law College, she tried to persuade Joan that she could do well both in family and her own career, though with no result. In teaching aspect, both Wang and Katherine were good at giving guidance to their students and sincerely expected their students a bright future, which is also appreciated in our society and is considered as positive role models for teachers in present times.

Although these two films both conveyed a theme of pursuing dreams, Wang longing to be able to sing in Paris Opera House and Katherine expecting to save girls from being repressed by the traditional and conservative force, they did express in different ways.

For instance, Wang and Katherine had various ways to achieve their goals and the outcomes of them were totally different. Being aloof, Wang fought against hardships all by her own without anyone understanding and supporting her and she bowed down to the cruel reality step by step. She used to spare no effort to set roots in Beijing, required an admission to stay in Peking Opera House and even begged for any working opportunity in order to stay in Peking Opera House, but all in vain. Eventually, she earned a living by selling mutton miserably, painfully hiding her wonderful dream.

On the contrary, Katherine lived by her own definition and never compromised to the things she hated. She was such an extraordinary woman, who lived by example and compelled the girls she taught to see the world through new eyes. It was her determination that pushed her forward in spite of setbacks and challenges and influenced others to pursue their own life. Different from other teachers in Wellesley College, she encouraged her students to believe in themselves, to learn to become career professionals, and to improve their futures. She used her art teachings as a vehicle to spread her opinion to the young girls that they didn’t need to conform to stereotypes of women made by society, or the roles made for them by society, since women were not born to become housewives and mothers. Although Katherine eventually left Wellesley College, she didn’t stop pursuing her dream to release girls that were fettered by tradition. Both the two women suffered a lot, but they got different results. Maybe this was due to the different degrees of persistence they had.

As for communicative aspect, Wang seemed to be a little lonely and aloof and she scorned to communicate with the vulgar people around her because she thought they had no common interests with her and it was a waste of time to talk to them. Therefore, Wang was isolated by others, which conveyed that artists were always lonely and were not understood by the public. For instance, Wang directly rejected Zhou Yu who tried to court Wang but did not understand her at all, saying that she would rather have one bite of a fresh peach rather than a whole basket of rotten ones.

On the contrary, Katherine was kind and patient to others, which won her the affection and respect, though some of them regarded her as strange and ridiculous. And eventually, Katherine influenced the girls she taught to be independent to live their own life. Apparently, these two films had different attitudes towards communication. And the Spring Comes thought that it was worthless to talk to vulgar people while Mona Lisa Smile believed it necessary to communicate with people to let them understand what you had in your mind.

Generally speaking, these two films were both good at portraying different images and the performers contributed a lot in the films’ success, showing us different attitudes towards dream pursuing and communicative strategies. And I think these two films are very worth watching and deserves our thinking!

[Leah R.]

Good job, I liked your essay and liked how I can " hear" your thoughts and emotions of the movie, Xiaoxue.
You did a nice job with spacing out your paragraphs, made it easier on the eyes to read.
A small grammatical error: instead of saying "on the past weekend" I suggest you change it to "Over the past weakened, I saw 2 two films, Mona Lisa Smile ...And the Spring Comes."
I liked how you inputted your opinion, maybe wait till the end to state which movie actress you like better after the analysis or make a separate paragraph why you prefer Jiang Wen Li more than Julia Roberts.
Good luck,
Leah

[Xiaoxue C.]

Thanks Leah . I will definitely take it into consideration!

[David L.]

Hi Xiaoxue,

I really liked the layout of your essay. I liked how it first portrayed the similarities between the two protagonists, then went on to analyze the differences in their circumstances and the films' viewpoints.

There were a couple of things that I noticed that could make a diffrence. First, I noticed that multiple of your sentences contained more than 2 or 3 commas in them. Although some of them could be grammatically correct, it was a little hard to follow up in the sentences. Maybe you could use only 2 conjuntions in the sentences to keep them not as long.

Also, I liked that at the end of your second paragraph, you mentioned that the two characters share similarities. Perhaps you could have another sentence announcing which aspects of the similarities you were going to focus on.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading your essay!

[Xiaoxue C.]

Thanks, David! I also want to cut some of my sentences to make the entire passage more concise. Your suggestions are very helpful for me . Thanks again!

[Xiaoxue C.]

Hi, Leah . I have consideered your suggestion to make another paragraph to explain why I prefer Jiang Wenli. It's good. But maybe it's a little bit missing the point . After all, it's a review of both films. Anyway, thanks for your kind suggestion! . Maybe I can tell you why I like her in the mail
I first noticed Jiang in the film- Farewell to My Concubine, diected by Chen Kaige. She acted as a mom of Xiao Douzi. I was impressed upon her beauty and her acting. One scene that she begged someone to raise her son- Xiao Douzi really struck me! A wonderful film! Maybe you could see it later

[Leah R.]

Hi Xiaoxue, you're welcome . Thank you for the movie suggestion, I will defiantly take a look and set if its available for me to watch. (:
If you would like continue communication after this, maybe WeChat ? What do you think?
~ Leah

[Xiaoxue C.]

Hi, Leah!
Absolutely! My Wechat number is 13480396068. Hope to chat with you through Wechat!

[Xiaoxue C.]

A Review of Mona Lisa Smile and
And the Spring Comes(revised)
180105
陈晓雪
Over the past weekend, I have seen two films. One is Mona Lisa Smile, directed by Mike Newell in 2003; the other is And the Spring Comes, in which my favorite actress— Jiang Wen Li performed, directed by Gu Chang Wei in 2007. After watching them, my mind was blown and they were definitely worth watching!
The film Mona Lisa Smile narrated a story of a beautiful, mature, independent and somewhat unconventional woman — Katherine (Julia Roberts), who was desired for freedom, fairness as well as the equality between men and women, and her teaching in Wellesley College, a traditional and conservative school. However, And the Spring Comes told a story of a woman called Wang Cai Ling (Jiang Wen Li), who was born with an ill-favored appearance but had a talent for singing operas. Thinking herself morally superior to others, Wang Cai Ling had few friends and pursued her dream of being able to sing in Paris Opera House bitterly.
Although these two films narrated two different stories, they had something in common— the main characters were both independent and unconventional women.
First of all, these two films both perfectly portrayed images of unconventional and independent women. In the film And the Spring Comes, Wang was an ordinary woman in a small backward town but she had a great dream of being able to sing in Paris Opera House, which was regarded as ridiculous in that backward town. Unwilling to be so commonplace, Wang used every trick in her bag to obtain a household register in Beijing so that she could achieve her dream more easily. Because at that time, if you were truly desired to get rid of a small backward town, the best option was to work in modern cities, such as Beijing, where you were bound to have a residence booklet otherwise you would fail without doubt.
When it came to Mona Lisa Smile, the film was set in a special period in the US, which deserved our thinking. In the 1950s, though people had frequently advocated the equality between men and women and women were entitled to receive education, the traditional and conservative force of high class existed indomitably and played an important role in people’s life. Moreover, Wellesley College was held up as a typical example of it. It civilized girls seemingly but persuaded educated girls to pick out a man and to get married after graduation instead of living their own life independently, and stood opposite of those progressive thoughts. Seeing this, Katherine made up her mind to become an art teacher in Wellesley College and strongly expected to make a real difference in it. Even if she had no idea about how to make a change, one thing was for certain, there were plenty of challenges and difficulties waiting for her. At Katherine’s first lesson, the students that Katherine taught were so obstructive that they almost got Katherine into hot water. Nevertheless, being firm and persistent, Katherine took up the challenges bravely. Both Katherine and Wang were full of courage and pursued their dreams in spite of various difficulties. They followed their hearts instead of the crowd, which was very rare in that period.
There is one more point, Wang and Katherine were both art teachers who assisted their students heatedly. For example, in the film And the Spring Comes, Wang gave up her residence booklet in Beijing which she longed for a long time, to help her student Beibei, who had lied to Wang that she was diagnosed with cancer and was definitely to die in the near future, to take part in the singing competition in Beijing. When Beibei received an award and said:” I will keep on singing all the way until that day my eyes are closed and I will happily remember what happened today and remember all the people who helped me.” Wang burst into tears and was touched deeply by the success of Beibei.
Similar to Wang, Katherine also spared no effort to help one of her favorite students— Joan to be admitted by Law College in Yale. Moreover, when Katherine knew that Joan had the intention of turning down the admission from Law College, she tried to persuade Joan that she could do well both in family and her own career, though with no result. In teaching aspect, both Wang and Katherine were good at giving guidance to their students and sincerely expected their students a bright future, which is also appreciated in our society and is considered as positive role models for teachers in present times.
Although these two films both conveyed a theme of pursuing dreams, Wang longing to be able to sing in Paris Opera House and Katherine expecting to save girls from being repressed by the traditional and conservative force, they did express in different ways.
For instance, Wang and Katherine had various ways to achieve their goals and the outcomes of them were totally different. Being aloof, Wang fought against hardships all by her own without anyone understanding and supporting her and she bowed down to the cruel reality step by step. She used to spare no effort to set roots in Beijing, required an admission to stay in Peking Opera House and even begged for any working opportunity in order to stay in Peking Opera House, but all in vain. Eventually, she earned a living by selling mutton miserably and painfully hid her wonderful dream.
On the contrary, Katherine lived by her own definition and never compromised to the things she hated. She was such an extraordinary woman, who lived by example and compelled the girls she taught to see the world through new eyes. It was her determination that pushed her forward in spite of setbacks and challenges and influenced others to pursue their own life. Different from other teachers in Wellesley College, she encouraged her students to believe in themselves and to learn to become career professionals. Thus they could improve their futures. She used her art teachings as a vehicle to spread her opinion to the young girls that they didn’t need to conform to stereotypes of women made by society, or the roles made for them by society, since women were not born to become housewives and mothers. Although Katherine eventually left Wellesley College, she didn’t stop pursuing her dream to release girls that were fettered by tradition. Both the two women suffered a lot, but they got different results. Maybe this was due to the different degrees of persistence they had.
As for communicative aspect, Wang seemed to be a little lonely and aloof and she scorned to communicate with the vulgar people around her because she thought they had no common interests with her and it was a waste of time to talk to them. Therefore, Wang was isolated by others. And it conveyed that artists were always lonely and were not understood by the public. For instance, Wang directly rejected Zhou Yu who tried to court Wang but did not understand her at all, saying that she would rather have one bite of a fresh peach rather than a whole basket of rotten ones.
On the contrary, Katherine was kind and patient to others, which won her the affection and respect, though some of them regarded her as strange and ridiculous. And eventually, Katherine influenced the girls she taught to be independent to live their own life. Apparently, these two films had different attitudes towards communication. And the Spring Comes thought that it was worthless to talk to vulgar people while Mona Lisa Smile believed it necessary to communicate with people to let them understand what you had in your mind.
Generally speaking, these two films were both good at portraying different images and the performers contributed a lot in the films’ success, showing us different attitudes towards dream pursuing and communicative strategies. And I think these two films are very worth watching and deserves our thinking!

[Xiaoxue C.]

Reflections
After several exchanges with Leah and Davie Lee, I have made some revisions. For instance, Davie suggested that maybe I should use only 2 conjunctions in the sentences to keep them not as long. Because he noticed that multiple of my sentences contained more than 2 or 3 commas in them. Although some of them could be grammatically correct, it was a little hard to follow up in the sentences. Therefore, I have tried my best to cut some of the sentences to make them more concise, though the entire passage was still a little long.

When it comes to Leah, she did give me some beneficial advice. For example, she has corrected me a small grammatical error: instead of saying "on the past weekend" she suggested changing it into "over the past weakened”. Out of curiosity, she’d like me to tell her why I like Jiang Wen Li. So, she advised me to make a separate paragraph to explain why I prefer Jiang Wen Li more than Julia Roberts. However, it seemed to me a little bit missing the point. After all, it's a review of both films. Therefore, I refused her politely and explained it in the post.
Before this project started, I had expected to communicate with foreign students face to face and thus to have a better understanding of them. I also wanted to know what they tended to focus on these two films and whether their focuses were different from me. And I was happy to find that we shared some of the same ideas!

They were so nice to give their suggestions and expressed their unique thoughts. Maybe I was not very good at expressing my opinions, so some of my comments seemed not to be so professional. Moe importantly, I think we Chinese students should feel free to chat with them. We could just enjoy the process and make it comfortable to express ourselves.

This Across Border Exchanges is wonderful, which has given me a wide platform to meet new friends and exchange different ideas. I really love this project! As for the suggestions, maybe the colleges involved could further allow students to chat face to face or give students from different countries an opportunity to cooperate with each other to complete interesting projects and not just to correct different essays. Also, colleges may give some awards to those who have done a good job, which seems to arouse students’ interests and allow them to know more about each other or to know more about different cultures!

Generally speaking, this project is fantastic and I was so fortunate to participate in it! Also, I am glad to know Leah and David!