A Room of Her Own: A Comparative Analysis
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2020 12:45 am
Dou Miaomiao
Monalisa Smile and And the Spring Comes, both films render the women situation in a special time. As Virginia Woolf imagines a room which belongs to a husband’s property, figures of men never fade away. Likewise, the heroines, Wellesley schoolgirls and Wang Tsai-ling either crave for a marriage or a soulmate, all in pursuit of an ideal life.
On the other hand, the heroines meet different fates under their cultural contexts. It is the lying cultures that cause Monalisa Smile to be idealistic while And the Spring Comes to be realistic.
Take Monalisa first. Set in the United States during the 1950s, a time of growing women awareness, Monalisa Smile focuses on professor Katherine Watson and the schoolgirls at Wellesley College. As a modern woman, Katherine owns a passion not only for art but for her students. But most students seem to be against her teaching, only to find the right man to marry. Feeling her views to be incompatible with the dominant culture, Katherine confronts them to the end.
Regardless of the stereotypes towards marriage, most of the characters have finally fulfilled their own ideals. Take Betty for example, it is her who always stands against with Katherine, and also who finally realized the famous Mona Lisa’s false smile----She got married and then divorced. As for Jone, she gave up her admission from Yale Law School and turns to marriage. As she puts it, marriage is just out of her own will.
And that is the point: “You can conform to what other people expect or you can be your selves.” Katherine and Betty, one is in pursuit of freedom while one in pursuit of a decent husband, both confront each other and make compromises. Seeing each other as a mirror image, they finally built a sense of self-identity that a woman’s freedom is not to confined to existing choices. Rather, it is about questioning the existing choices and even making a choice out of own will.
But in this respect, compared with And the Spring Comes, Monalisa Smile is idealistic: If Monalisa Smile is about women’s choice, then And the Spring Comes is more tragically, a story of a woman without a choice.
Also taken as an episode of a time, the story of And the Spring Comes traces back to the 1980s’ China. Since the economic reform, the 1980s’ Chinese society was encountering huge upheavals, pushing the younger generations in industrial cities to start a life anew. As the scriptwriter Li Qiang said, And the Spring Comes is about individuals; about how they make decisions and adapt to the economic shock wave.
Among the individuals comes the struggling life of Wang Tsai-ling and several young men. The heroine Wang have been fancying herself as the main Soprano at the National Opera Company. But indeed, she is not a Wellesley schoolgirl, but an ugly, normal spinster. Unfortunately, her only talent for singing has never changed her life.
Unlike Monalisa Smile, the circumstance turns to be more complicating for both sex in And the Spring Comes. In Monalisa Smile, Katherine and her students are well-educated, in possession of a prestigious family status. They could pursue for love or a better education whatsoever. Nevertheless, throughout Wang Tsai-ling’s life she is forlorn without any privilege or partner. Obviously she craves for love, but to be realistic love is not her alternative. Rather, she struggles to procure a Beijing Hukou, a requisite for her soprano fantasy. But heartbreakingly, the last scene that she gives her performance on stage would never come true.
Behind heroines, indeed the man characters vary a lot. In Monalisa Smile, men like Bill appear as husbands and teachers, standing for the breadwinner and superiority. However, man in And the Spring Comes appears no longer as the almighty, but as the same poor individuals as Wang Tsai-ling. Take the two artistic men Huang and Hu, the crash between ideals and reality befalls their life. Once deemed as Wang’s confidants, but they both forsook their hopes for art and dancing, ending up as a tragic. Like Wang, they did harbor beliefs towards art, but in the cruel destiny, they had no choice but to give in.
This may explain why And the Spring has an edge of realism. Wang should not be seen as a special of the that time, but as a normal one as other individuals faced by the harsh reality. In addition to sex or marriage, it is the strikingly different cultures and statuses that determines their’ fates. In other words, if Katherine and Betty freed from men’s shackles by there self-awareness, then persons like Wang could only live with a revolving fatalism. As the title of And the Spring Comes interprets, at the cycle of changing seasons, what awaits them still remains unknown.
Another noteworthy fact to differentiate the two may be the filming techniques. In an artistic tone, Monalisa Smile never lacks explanations on colors. From the very start of the prehistoric paintings to later, girls’ discussions on Van Gogh and Mona Lisa, throughout the scenes this is an uplifting, vivid style. Particularly at the final scene, the brightness ushers the characters into a rosy future. By contrast, And the Spring Comes appears relatively darker, with its gloomy tone further enhanced by rhythms. Its settings focus on dimly lit rooms, unrecognizable dingy streets and country wilderness, through which inserts sad melody and dialogues. Furthermore, what distinguishes the narrative structure is the occurrence of one dilapidated pavilion, with Wang Tsai-ling’s off-screen voice echoing from the beginning to the end.
In summary, under different cultural contexts the heroines in the two films inhabit various “rooms”. Monalisa Smile shows choices, while And the Spring Comes uncovers a facet of fatalism. Thinking back to the famous lady Mona Lisa who has been watched through others’ lens, at least one thing is sure. What she needs is not perspectives of others, but a room of her own----a room in which she ponders about her plight and dares to break through the darkness.
Monalisa Smile and And the Spring Comes, both films render the women situation in a special time. As Virginia Woolf imagines a room which belongs to a husband’s property, figures of men never fade away. Likewise, the heroines, Wellesley schoolgirls and Wang Tsai-ling either crave for a marriage or a soulmate, all in pursuit of an ideal life.
On the other hand, the heroines meet different fates under their cultural contexts. It is the lying cultures that cause Monalisa Smile to be idealistic while And the Spring Comes to be realistic.
Take Monalisa first. Set in the United States during the 1950s, a time of growing women awareness, Monalisa Smile focuses on professor Katherine Watson and the schoolgirls at Wellesley College. As a modern woman, Katherine owns a passion not only for art but for her students. But most students seem to be against her teaching, only to find the right man to marry. Feeling her views to be incompatible with the dominant culture, Katherine confronts them to the end.
Regardless of the stereotypes towards marriage, most of the characters have finally fulfilled their own ideals. Take Betty for example, it is her who always stands against with Katherine, and also who finally realized the famous Mona Lisa’s false smile----She got married and then divorced. As for Jone, she gave up her admission from Yale Law School and turns to marriage. As she puts it, marriage is just out of her own will.
And that is the point: “You can conform to what other people expect or you can be your selves.” Katherine and Betty, one is in pursuit of freedom while one in pursuit of a decent husband, both confront each other and make compromises. Seeing each other as a mirror image, they finally built a sense of self-identity that a woman’s freedom is not to confined to existing choices. Rather, it is about questioning the existing choices and even making a choice out of own will.
But in this respect, compared with And the Spring Comes, Monalisa Smile is idealistic: If Monalisa Smile is about women’s choice, then And the Spring Comes is more tragically, a story of a woman without a choice.
Also taken as an episode of a time, the story of And the Spring Comes traces back to the 1980s’ China. Since the economic reform, the 1980s’ Chinese society was encountering huge upheavals, pushing the younger generations in industrial cities to start a life anew. As the scriptwriter Li Qiang said, And the Spring Comes is about individuals; about how they make decisions and adapt to the economic shock wave.
Among the individuals comes the struggling life of Wang Tsai-ling and several young men. The heroine Wang have been fancying herself as the main Soprano at the National Opera Company. But indeed, she is not a Wellesley schoolgirl, but an ugly, normal spinster. Unfortunately, her only talent for singing has never changed her life.
Unlike Monalisa Smile, the circumstance turns to be more complicating for both sex in And the Spring Comes. In Monalisa Smile, Katherine and her students are well-educated, in possession of a prestigious family status. They could pursue for love or a better education whatsoever. Nevertheless, throughout Wang Tsai-ling’s life she is forlorn without any privilege or partner. Obviously she craves for love, but to be realistic love is not her alternative. Rather, she struggles to procure a Beijing Hukou, a requisite for her soprano fantasy. But heartbreakingly, the last scene that she gives her performance on stage would never come true.
Behind heroines, indeed the man characters vary a lot. In Monalisa Smile, men like Bill appear as husbands and teachers, standing for the breadwinner and superiority. However, man in And the Spring Comes appears no longer as the almighty, but as the same poor individuals as Wang Tsai-ling. Take the two artistic men Huang and Hu, the crash between ideals and reality befalls their life. Once deemed as Wang’s confidants, but they both forsook their hopes for art and dancing, ending up as a tragic. Like Wang, they did harbor beliefs towards art, but in the cruel destiny, they had no choice but to give in.
This may explain why And the Spring has an edge of realism. Wang should not be seen as a special of the that time, but as a normal one as other individuals faced by the harsh reality. In addition to sex or marriage, it is the strikingly different cultures and statuses that determines their’ fates. In other words, if Katherine and Betty freed from men’s shackles by there self-awareness, then persons like Wang could only live with a revolving fatalism. As the title of And the Spring Comes interprets, at the cycle of changing seasons, what awaits them still remains unknown.
Another noteworthy fact to differentiate the two may be the filming techniques. In an artistic tone, Monalisa Smile never lacks explanations on colors. From the very start of the prehistoric paintings to later, girls’ discussions on Van Gogh and Mona Lisa, throughout the scenes this is an uplifting, vivid style. Particularly at the final scene, the brightness ushers the characters into a rosy future. By contrast, And the Spring Comes appears relatively darker, with its gloomy tone further enhanced by rhythms. Its settings focus on dimly lit rooms, unrecognizable dingy streets and country wilderness, through which inserts sad melody and dialogues. Furthermore, what distinguishes the narrative structure is the occurrence of one dilapidated pavilion, with Wang Tsai-ling’s off-screen voice echoing from the beginning to the end.
In summary, under different cultural contexts the heroines in the two films inhabit various “rooms”. Monalisa Smile shows choices, while And the Spring Comes uncovers a facet of fatalism. Thinking back to the famous lady Mona Lisa who has been watched through others’ lens, at least one thing is sure. What she needs is not perspectives of others, but a room of her own----a room in which she ponders about her plight and dares to break through the darkness.
