A Movie Review about Women's Rights
Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2020 11:27 pm
A Movie Review about Women's Rights
Guo Chengcheng
The film “Mona Lisa Smile” depicts the United States in 1953, when times are changing. Katherine, who graduated from the open-minded University of Berkeley, went to Wesleyan Girls' School to teach art history. She has revolutionary leading consciousness and is full of ideals and enthusiasm, boldly challenging the outdated teaching system to change a group of extremely smart female students who take marriage as their ultimate career. The film "And the Spring Comes" tells us that Wang Cailing, who is as an art suitor, constantly suffered setbacks and blows from reality on the road of pursuing her ideal, and finally had to succumb to the cruelty of reality.
These two films are both about dream and reality, exaggerated as heaven and hell. Surprisingly, the two heroines in the film are both revelers with feminist temperament. They all give us a perfect presentation of one person's war. The role orientation of women has always been the focus of attention, and female's pursuit of freedom and equality is a timeless topic.
The film “Mona Lisa Smile” reflects the consciousness of female's pursuit of self-consciousness and value on the eve of the American sexual liberation movement. The heroine seems to be fighting against the rigid teaching system, rather than speaking for female's rights. In Wesley, a girls' school known as "ivy without men", their education spreads to students the idea that "women should serve men" and defines students' future marriage as the standard of educational success. The fate of women is always in the hands of men, favored by their love and depraved by their disgust. Like Betty, a loyal defender of traditional etiquette in the film. Her goal is to get married and become a housewife. In fact, she was suffering from marriage. When she poured everything into her husband, the flirtatious husband soon had a third party. In the face of betrayal and her mother's education to stick to her womanhood, Betty chose silence and forbearance at first, but in the end she was the first female in a group of students to break through the old tradition.
"And the Spring Comes" shows the awakening of early Chinese female's self-consciousness. After repeated failures in love, Wang Cailing realized that "they (married women) all seem to be used as mirrors" and became the winner who rushed out of the "iron house". She broke through this limitation, got rid of her masculinity and married herself. For thousands of years, women have always been a vulnerable group deprived of the right to speak, and their fate is dominated by men in the patriarchal society, no matter who can escape this fate. So we think Katherine and Wang Cailing have given the most firm answer whether to yield or resist.
The excellence of these two films lies not only in the interpretation of feminism, but also in some well-designed artistic techniques worthy of attention. Firstly, in the use of picture colors, most of them are cold tones, giving people a kind of visual chill, which is a kind of strengthening of the theme. For example, in the scene of Hu Jinquan pushing a cart and walking in the snow after Hu Jinquan's fake proposal to Wang Cailing was rejected, the color of the whole picture was reflected in blue, plus the cold light reflected by the snow, using the cold color to the extreme. This kind of coldness corresponds to the sadness in Hu Jinquan's heart and is the externalized portrayal of the tears of pain on his face. Additionally, in the use of the film music, it fully reflects the narrative requirements of the story, and uses more slow and quiet music to make the music coincide with the tone of the film, the narrative tone of the long shot and the rhythm of the editing. Moreover, many lyrics and melodies of the opera also seize the opportunity to set off the theme and mood. Therefore, this film is a work with excellent ideological and artistic quality, which is worth digging and savoring carefully.
However, “Mona Lisa Smile” is good at hinting and contrasting with the plot, and shows its language art with the confrontation between Katherine and Betty. For example, the first confrontation : Katherine showed her students a work of art that was not part of the syllabus and asked her students to express their views. The dialogue between Katherine and Betty was actually a battle between modern and traditional. This conflict defined the positioning of the two characters for the first time, and also laid the groundwork for the promotion of the later plot. The second confrontation: married Betty took the class for the first time after missing many classes. A large number of parallelism sentence patterns push the conflict between the two to a new and most exciting part. The sentence is short and concise, but it conveys the middle ideas thoroughly and creates a tense atmosphere at the same time. In this conversation, Katherine conveys a dissatisfaction with the tradition that Betty adheres to, and Betty firmly conveys an unchallenged arrogance of authority. The third confrontation: the students make an exception to invite Katherine to join their secret group, where everyone told everything they know and gossip and chat together. But Betty still showed a consistent aversion to Katherine. Joan's application and choice to Yale University pushed the contradiction between the two characteristics to the highest level and became the direct fuse for Betty to write an article attacking Katherine. Betty believed that Katherine interfered with Joan's choice, but in fact Betty kidnapped Joan in a traditional, ostensibly good manner for Joan and thought that any deviation is incorrect, which is the bondage of the traditional old thought. However, Katherine opens Joan's world view of looking at problems from multiple angles, but how to choose still needs to be decided by Joan, which is a kind of liberation brought by new ideas. Throughout the film, similar language sparks are no longer rare, appearing among different characters. Through these dialogues, the ideas conveyed by the film unwittingly permeate the audience’s consciousness. Sometimes, a good film does not necessarily need ups and downs of the plot or the character expression, like the film, the language seems to be more memorable.
It is often said that a good film should not only have a different artistic approach, but also have a theme that is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In our opinion, “And the Spring Comes” and “Mona Lisa Smile” precisely meet this standard. The unique use of color contrast, the ease of switching between long and short shots, and the ingenious setting of the plot are the professional techniques carefully designed by the director everywhere. Both films show the awakening and contradiction of self-consciousness and the struggle against the traditional vision. The protagonists are all female characters with distinct personalities. There is no need to discuss the final outcome, because their struggle process has shown the light that belongs to them, although short but also dazzling. We think these are what the films bring to us—the professional techniques hidden behind the screen and the life thinking behind each protagonist.
Guo Chengcheng
The film “Mona Lisa Smile” depicts the United States in 1953, when times are changing. Katherine, who graduated from the open-minded University of Berkeley, went to Wesleyan Girls' School to teach art history. She has revolutionary leading consciousness and is full of ideals and enthusiasm, boldly challenging the outdated teaching system to change a group of extremely smart female students who take marriage as their ultimate career. The film "And the Spring Comes" tells us that Wang Cailing, who is as an art suitor, constantly suffered setbacks and blows from reality on the road of pursuing her ideal, and finally had to succumb to the cruelty of reality.
These two films are both about dream and reality, exaggerated as heaven and hell. Surprisingly, the two heroines in the film are both revelers with feminist temperament. They all give us a perfect presentation of one person's war. The role orientation of women has always been the focus of attention, and female's pursuit of freedom and equality is a timeless topic.
The film “Mona Lisa Smile” reflects the consciousness of female's pursuit of self-consciousness and value on the eve of the American sexual liberation movement. The heroine seems to be fighting against the rigid teaching system, rather than speaking for female's rights. In Wesley, a girls' school known as "ivy without men", their education spreads to students the idea that "women should serve men" and defines students' future marriage as the standard of educational success. The fate of women is always in the hands of men, favored by their love and depraved by their disgust. Like Betty, a loyal defender of traditional etiquette in the film. Her goal is to get married and become a housewife. In fact, she was suffering from marriage. When she poured everything into her husband, the flirtatious husband soon had a third party. In the face of betrayal and her mother's education to stick to her womanhood, Betty chose silence and forbearance at first, but in the end she was the first female in a group of students to break through the old tradition.
"And the Spring Comes" shows the awakening of early Chinese female's self-consciousness. After repeated failures in love, Wang Cailing realized that "they (married women) all seem to be used as mirrors" and became the winner who rushed out of the "iron house". She broke through this limitation, got rid of her masculinity and married herself. For thousands of years, women have always been a vulnerable group deprived of the right to speak, and their fate is dominated by men in the patriarchal society, no matter who can escape this fate. So we think Katherine and Wang Cailing have given the most firm answer whether to yield or resist.
The excellence of these two films lies not only in the interpretation of feminism, but also in some well-designed artistic techniques worthy of attention. Firstly, in the use of picture colors, most of them are cold tones, giving people a kind of visual chill, which is a kind of strengthening of the theme. For example, in the scene of Hu Jinquan pushing a cart and walking in the snow after Hu Jinquan's fake proposal to Wang Cailing was rejected, the color of the whole picture was reflected in blue, plus the cold light reflected by the snow, using the cold color to the extreme. This kind of coldness corresponds to the sadness in Hu Jinquan's heart and is the externalized portrayal of the tears of pain on his face. Additionally, in the use of the film music, it fully reflects the narrative requirements of the story, and uses more slow and quiet music to make the music coincide with the tone of the film, the narrative tone of the long shot and the rhythm of the editing. Moreover, many lyrics and melodies of the opera also seize the opportunity to set off the theme and mood. Therefore, this film is a work with excellent ideological and artistic quality, which is worth digging and savoring carefully.
However, “Mona Lisa Smile” is good at hinting and contrasting with the plot, and shows its language art with the confrontation between Katherine and Betty. For example, the first confrontation : Katherine showed her students a work of art that was not part of the syllabus and asked her students to express their views. The dialogue between Katherine and Betty was actually a battle between modern and traditional. This conflict defined the positioning of the two characters for the first time, and also laid the groundwork for the promotion of the later plot. The second confrontation: married Betty took the class for the first time after missing many classes. A large number of parallelism sentence patterns push the conflict between the two to a new and most exciting part. The sentence is short and concise, but it conveys the middle ideas thoroughly and creates a tense atmosphere at the same time. In this conversation, Katherine conveys a dissatisfaction with the tradition that Betty adheres to, and Betty firmly conveys an unchallenged arrogance of authority. The third confrontation: the students make an exception to invite Katherine to join their secret group, where everyone told everything they know and gossip and chat together. But Betty still showed a consistent aversion to Katherine. Joan's application and choice to Yale University pushed the contradiction between the two characteristics to the highest level and became the direct fuse for Betty to write an article attacking Katherine. Betty believed that Katherine interfered with Joan's choice, but in fact Betty kidnapped Joan in a traditional, ostensibly good manner for Joan and thought that any deviation is incorrect, which is the bondage of the traditional old thought. However, Katherine opens Joan's world view of looking at problems from multiple angles, but how to choose still needs to be decided by Joan, which is a kind of liberation brought by new ideas. Throughout the film, similar language sparks are no longer rare, appearing among different characters. Through these dialogues, the ideas conveyed by the film unwittingly permeate the audience’s consciousness. Sometimes, a good film does not necessarily need ups and downs of the plot or the character expression, like the film, the language seems to be more memorable.
It is often said that a good film should not only have a different artistic approach, but also have a theme that is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In our opinion, “And the Spring Comes” and “Mona Lisa Smile” precisely meet this standard. The unique use of color contrast, the ease of switching between long and short shots, and the ingenious setting of the plot are the professional techniques carefully designed by the director everywhere. Both films show the awakening and contradiction of self-consciousness and the struggle against the traditional vision. The protagonists are all female characters with distinct personalities. There is no need to discuss the final outcome, because their struggle process has shown the light that belongs to them, although short but also dazzling. We think these are what the films bring to us—the professional techniques hidden behind the screen and the life thinking behind each protagonist.