Sybil

The movie Sybil is a very interesting movie. In the beginning of the film, you would think that this is a horror movie as the music starts with a very eerie music but as it continues you can hear a very distorting hum in the background. To me the music already tells part of the story, the distortion can symbolize the chaotic nature of a person's life living with Dissociative identity disorder (DID). The plot of the film was based on a true experience of a lady named Sybil. 

The film is about a young lady named Sybil as well, it showed us a alittle peek of what a person suffering from DID would look like or experience. It was shown that she had multiple distinct personality in a single person. Right of the bat of the movie, you can see Sybil's condition was triggered by sounds of the swing and eventually had a small breakdown in front of the children she was in charge of. She rushed to Dr Wilbur, a psychiatrist after the small breakdown. She told Dr Wilbur that she had symptoms of some form of amnesia as she will have episodes of blackouts causing her to wake up in a different time. Her condition grew worse as the movie progresses, and you can see her life becomes more chaotic as her other personalities grows stronger. Dr Wilbur worked hard to track down her past as she put the pieces together and hopefully treat her. 

DID is still an enigma today, the progression and understanding psychological disorders has improved and we have shed some light on the subject. However, a lot is still unknown about DID particularly what causes it in the first place (Harrison, 2006). Based on the DSM-5 by the American Psychiatric Association (2013), DID is diagnosed by 1. Individual has 2 or more distinct personality present. 2. Amnesia 3. Individual must be distressed by the disorder and have trouble functioning in daily life. 4. The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices.5. The symptoms are not due to any effects of any substance. 

Sybil exhibited all of the symptoms in the movie and was given the treatment of hypnosis by Dr Wilbur. Some believed that an individual suffering from DID is easily hypnotised as the symptoms are iatrogenic. Other therapies like Cognitive and creative therapies are encouraged. Experts suggested and hypothesized that there is a relationship between trauma and DID as most patients suffering from DID reported that they experienced trauma before the mental disorder. You can also see that Sybil was affected greatly by the traumas in her early life and these personalities take over like a defense mechanism. 

My opinion, Sybil is a great movie and I would recommend everyone to watch it. The movie showed that the cast did their research on DID. Very well made. 

Departures

Departures is a superb film about death, most films nowadays talk about death to be a very depressing matter, where a lot of rage, sorrow and revenge. However, departure goes in a little deeper and talk about how everyday people deal with death. Most of the time in film, death is exaggerated for the plot. In reality, people are not too dramatic. Throughout time, people has a huge fascination with death. People wonder whether death being the end of the journey in life, a lot of religion also tells that there are life after death, be it heaven, hell or rebirth. No one knows for sure and that might be one of the reason for the curiosity of the mystery of death.

A lot of people want to believe that there are life after death, hence, belief of ghost or rebirths are very common throughout many cultures. Many people are afraid that death would be the end of everything and it frightens people a lot. A void after you take your very last breath. Would it be meaningless to do good or evil because we might be reduced to nothingness.

Departure shows a very different perspective of death, it reminds people, although after an individual is no longer in the world of the living but their deeds and memories lives on. The job of the encoffiner in Japanese are family members in the age of the old. However, in the modern generations, it turned into a career for families to employ them to give their final respect and a form of rite to send them on their way in life. I find it beautiful, it triggered personal memories of my late grandfathers and the rites of our religions, it did not only help my late grandfathers depart the world of the living but the priest and minister reminds us of the memories we have with them (the departed) and these memories immortalize them and they continue to live on in our memories.

I recommend everyone to watch the film and it has a lot of touching moments.

Whiplash

"Whiplash" is a really good film and the it really hits hard in the feelings for me as I was once a bully-victim. However, we can observe some bully behavior in the film, Andrew and Fletcher exhibit bullying behavior in more of an abusive relationship. Andrew kept going back to Fletcher even though he has shamed and embarrass him many times. Fletcher knows Andrew's desire to play in his band, he manipulated some of the truth to try to keep him in his grasp. 1st time, Fletcher talked to Andrew face to face, Fletcher seemingly good told Andrew to relax and play to the best of his abilities. After that, they went in to continue playing, Fletcher establish his dominance and power to Andrew when he let Andrew tried playing the drums. 

Fletcher did not really care about Andrew at 1st, the constant change of drummers and other musician is just how he establish his dominance in his band. Regardless of whether he is trying to mold another "Charlie Parker", it is clearly a bully behavior, with his power over other individuals to control over them. He established an abusive relationship with all the members of the band where everyone did not dare to cross him. Andrew is the only one in the whole film who showed a certain resistance towards Fletcher. Which, with a hypothesis, I am guessing that Fletcher took some interest in Andrew and tries to push him as far as he can. 

In the end, Andrew could see through the abusive nature of the relationship between him and Fletcher, hence, he helped the lawyer in charging Fletcher that made him unable to continue on teaching. Fletcher then came back to take revenge on Andrew by manipulating into playing in his band in a crowd that if a musician mess up, it will be the death of their career. 

Although, Andrew came back fighting by playing well in the end of the movie, it still does not show that Fletcher has changed his way, rather than just give Andrew a little respect. He might just give Andrew that respect for giving his band a good show. 

The movie made me remembered my past when I was bullied, feeling the embarrassment my bullies inflicted on me. Having feeling helpless and lost most of the time. It really impacted my self-esteem and self-confidence. Until today, I am still working hard to be better and walk out of the past. Bullying can leave a detrimental impact on an individual like depression or severe anxiety. We can also observe that one of Fletcher's student committed suicide  because of depression by getting bullied by Fletcher, according to the lawyer. 

I like that the movie showed the bullying and abusive side of the characters to raise awareness, however, I did not like the ending. Bullying and being an abuser is not ok and there is no happy ending at the end of the relationship, only out of the relationship.

Still Alice

Still Alive, a film directed by Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland, starring Julianne Moore as an intelligent linguistic professor named Alice Howland, Alec Baldwin as her husband, John Howland, Kristen Stewart, Hunter Parrish and Kate Bosworth plays the children of Alice Howland. The movie shows the story of an intelligent university professor that was diagnosed with Familial Alzheimer's disease and how her life changed as her disease progressively getting serious.

This movie pulls my heart strings as it triggers some memories of my late grandfather, whom at his later stage of his life, he started going through Alzheimer's disease turning from a cheerful strong man to a frail forgetful old man that could not recognize us  at times. It is very difficult when a loved-one turn from someone you know to a shell of their former glory. It definitely feels like losing that family member forever.

What I can observed from the movie, the family dealing with the Alice Howland's disease, went through the stage of grief and loss from Kubler-Ross Model. The 5 stages of loss and grief from the Kubler-Ross Model, the first stage of the Kubler-Ross model is Denial, where an individual tries to deny that the reality of the situation and are convinced that it's all a mistake or just a phase. This is evidently shown in the movie, when Alice Howland and her husband in the early stages before the proper diagnosis were made, they think that it is a mistake.

The next stage is anger, Alice Howland was obviously extremely angry at herself and the situation, hence ,she had a number of fights with her husband as well as her kids. this is the stage where an individual at angry and the situation they are in.

The following stage is bargaining, where people tries to make the situation work or better. Alice Howland bargain mostly with herself and her family, she can get certain treatment and do certain mental exercise to slow down the disease, and also she bargain with her family that she can take care of herself without the help of others, even with the disease.

Depression stage is next and this stage is where the reality sinks in and people will feel helpless in the situation. Alice Howland felt extremely helpless in the situation being a well-achieved professor and an intelligent woman slowly losing her intelligence and memories. She cried out numerous times and even thought of suicide when she felt that she was at the mercy of the disease.

The final stage is acceptance, the calm after the storm. People usually will accept the situation and move on after going through all the stages and hopefully be better or do better. In this case, it's actually the family of Alice Howland that accpet her conditions and go on with their lives while taking care of her.

Nevertheless, I love this movie and would recommend everyone to watch this.

The Sixth Sense

The Sixth Sense is one of the most popular movie, even today. It is one of the most classic horror movie , however, it is a horror movie that does not uses Computer Generated Images (CGI) that most horror movie today uses to create scary images to scare the audience. The sixth sense uses more of makeup and the ambiance as well as music to capture the attention of the audience and scare them. The movie was very good and at some point pretty scary. Hence, this grabbed my attention. I am curious on why am I feel this feeling of fear from just a movie and I know that the contents of the movie isn't real but my body goes into an automatic response of fight/ flight.

Hence, I did a little researching on fear from a evolutionary perspective, according to Boyer and Bergstrom (2011) and Marks and Nesse (1994), fear is a defense mechanism of humans to detect dangers, thus, the fight and flight system triggers subconsciously trying to protect him/herself from potential dangers. However, this does not the answer of why people are afraid of a movie which in logical sense, it does not threaten anyone's safety but why is the flight or fight mechanism still triggered. 

According to (Marks & Nesse, 1994), evolutionary research found that fear takes root from our ancestors, somehow fear can be inherit from our ancestors through memories in our DNA or cultures. That explains, why in general people are afraid of snakes or spiders as it is a threat back in our ancestors time. While, Ghost or horror movie does not post any threat but the idea of a ghost or supernatural phenomenon scares people in general because there is a lot of uncertainty and unknown. People are afraid of the unknown because it is a problem for an individual to predict or understand whether there is any threat that might come to them. It is very interesting that even a movie that seems harmless can tell us a lot of our ancestry roots in a evolutionary psychology perspective. 

References

Boyer, P., & Bergstrom, B. (2011). Threat-detection in child development: An evolutionary perspective. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 35(4), 1034-1041. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2010.08.010

Marks, I., & Nesse, R. (1994). Fear and fitness: An evolutionary analysis of anxiety disorders. Ethology And Sociobiology, 15(5-6), 247-261. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0162-3095(94)90002-7

Forget Paris

Love is in the air and Paris is the place you would think of. Why not? It's the most romantic city in the world. For Mickey Gordon, it definitely was romantic in Paris. It all start when he needed to bury his father in Paris and the airline he was taking, lost his father. Ellen Andrews was tasked to help Mickey find his father's casket. That was where the spark all started for Mickey. The story soon unfolded into them getting married and the challenges they had to face.

It is interesting at different stages Mickey and Ellen showed types of love from Sternberg's Triangular Theory of Love (Sternberg, 1986) and according to SternBerg (1986), Love is made up of 3 component which are intimacy, Commitment and passion. The combination of different component form different types of love. For example, as Mickey and Ellen first dated in Paris, It definitely showed romantic love where both of them showed passion and intimacy but they have no commitment toward each other. At the beginning of their marriage, they developed their relationship into consummate love as a commitment was established between them. As their relationship went to a bumpy stage, it drop from there are became Empty Love where only holding them was by commitment.

Although at the end, they made up and went back together to consummate love, it is interesting to me that we can observe the dynamics of relationship to different stages through time and how well they handle their relationship.  After the movie, it got me thinking, how a couple can maintain a relationship for many years as biologically human ancestor was polyamory in nature because having different partners increases chances of having offspring. It is amazing from a evolutionary psychology point of view that humans evolved from a polyamory to a monogamy practices via marriage. I think monogamy keeps the family small and things simple for family issues and origins where if a crisis happened in a polygamy family, it would be very difficult for an individual to handle as well and the problem with jealousy from the partner.

The movie was enjoyable and quite witty at times. I enjoyed it very much and the movie really gave me something to think about love.

References

Sternberg, R. (1986). A triangular theory of love. Psychological Review, 93(2), 119-135. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-295x.93.2.119

Whale Rider

The movie starts by establishing that the protagonist, Paikea, was born into a Maori family with patriarchal tradition that the first born male grandson would be the leader of the tribe. However, because her twin brother passed away during birth, her grandfather, Koro, the tribe chief and elder was developed conflicted and complicated feelings towards Paikea. Koro, loved Paikea but Paikea's interest in learning to be a chief of the tribe infuriates Koro because to he thinks all the bad luck that is happened to the tribe was brought by Paikea.

The movie clearly showed elements that can be explained with Eagly and Wood (2012) 's Social role theory, where roles of the genders, male and female, are socially constructed with Men being the leaders and chief of it's people and women should not be interfering with the business of men. This hit a chord with me, especially born of a Chinese ethnicity male, our culture and  tradition is more patriarchal as you can see families with more conservative thinking would favor the male over the female. This is because the males can carry the family name, as a male marries a female, he brings the female into the family. While a Chinese female with marry away to the male family.  Moreover, normally, the males especially the first born would be the heir of anything that is passed down like businesses or heirlooms. Hence, the first-born are expected to excel and rise to the occasion. In the movie, Porourangi, Paikea's father, felt  the pressure of being expected to be the chief by Koro. Porourangi knew it wasn't his calling but was repeatedly pestered by Koro to do so. 

Despite all that, Paikea fought hard to gain the respect and love of her grandfather. She never stopped learning the ways of her people, even Koro repeatedly scolded her and mistreated her. Eventually, after being saved from drowning as she ride the whales. Koro realized that Paikea is the rightful heir, as she earned it by retrieving the tooth of the whale. Koro gave Paikea the respect and love that she rightfully have and was taught of the ways of her people to be the future tribe chief.

Strictly Ballroom

Strictly Ballroom to me has a interesting take on telling a story, Some of the expressions and communications of the characters were transmitted to the audience via dance. The facial expression, the movements and pacing of the dance all express how they feel or how the setting of the certain moment is for the scene. Like in the Beginning, Scott Hastings danced with Liz in a competition which they lost, Scott tried very hard to establish his own steps, that eventually brought controversy in the dancing community. His own style of dancing showed, ambition and his resilience under criticism and the controversy around him. It actually showed his emotions and his intentions. As a psychology student, I asked myself how did he convey that piece of information before he announced it by words.

It then hit me, it was body language. According to Hartley and Karinch (2014), their book showed that body language is communication not just used by humans but also other animals without verbal communications. Body language is also a blend of both art and science, the science behind body language includes physiology, psychology to social science and so on. While the art parts are movement, culture, pacing and so on. As human has a higher functioning cognitive capability, we are more advance in both science and art compared to other organisms. Hence, our body language can be complex and the ways of convey them varies so much more than other organisms. Dance is one of them. For example, Scott's father Doug Hastings danced in a couple of scenes alone that was hilarious but it also showed a side of loneliness and regrets. Some of the Audience will only know that Doug regretted no dancing with his wife with their own steps back in the past towards the end of the movie. However, some audience could make a good guess on how the real intentions of Doug. How? It was the body language, his lonely and hilarious dance showed it all. It is amazing how non-verbal communication and micro-body language showed such deep meaning. It is no surprised before movies with sound, silent movies were popular like Charlie Chaplin with his movies showed lots of body language and facial expressions to convey their message to the audience.

Running On Empty

Running on empty is a heart-wrenching drama that revolves around the Pope family that went underground, after, Annie and Arthur Pope caused an explosion that hurt the janitor. This incident caused them to be fugitives one the run from the FBI. The movie mainly follows Danny Pope, Annie and Arthur's first born son. Danny Pope lives a very difficult life as he has to move around a lot with the parents as they are being pursued by the FBI. After watching this movie, I can see the main theme of the movie is about family.

In order to keep his family safe and whole, Arthur Pope brought his family into hiding. I felt tremendous sorrow for Arthur, he had face so much challenges for a mistake he made in the past. He lost so much for moving around and running away. He lost his mother and did not get to pay his last respect, and soon after he had to let go of his son to live his life, even though he knew that he would not be able to see his again.

Danny Pope fits the Identity vs. Role Confusion of Erikson's Psychosocial Theory. Danny Pope being at the age of 17, he is searching for what role he is going to play as he enters adulthood. You can see his identity crisis/role confusion emerges as he didn't know what to do with his life and he has been changing identities from all the moving around. However, he begins to start doing things differently when they moved to New Jersey. He had talent for music and he caught attention from one of his new school music teacher. Also, he fell in love with a girl and soon after, decided to stay and conflicted with his father. However, it all ended well, as he was given a chance to live his life by his father. Although sad that he will have to leave them but he was able to live his life and stop running.

Awakenings

Awakenings is a film from the 1990, directed by Penny Marshall. The film depicts Dr Malcolm Sayes portrayed by Robin Williams, about his experiences and challenges to attempt to treat patients that are deemed un-treatable catatonic for many years. Dr Sayes(Robin Williams) in the film shows signs that he is an extreme introvert that had trouble interacting with people in a social situation. This can be shown clearly when he applied for the a job at the psychiatric hospital, he looked rather uncomfortable when he was told that he was going to interact and treat living breathing human beings, another scene that show this perfectly is, when he was interacting with one of the patients Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro) , He told him that he do not have a girl friend because he was very socially awkward and could not interact well with people.

What I found absolutely intriguing for this film is the whole interaction between Dr sayes (Robin Williams) with the patients and Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro) shows the challenge between patient/clients with mental disorders and the doctors/psychologist. Some patients might think that they are cured and no longer need treatment despite the advise of doctors/therapists. It also shows the challenges that therapists/Doctor might face and accept that not all patients can be saved and although hope seems lose when treatment aren't working, and patient's life seemed meaningless to others, you should never give up on a life.

The films also depict several issues like how the world of medicine and treatment is not an easy job, it is not as simple as a treatment is found and then it is administered. Testing and experimenting are a big part to make sure the treatments are safe to be administered and to find out the side effects that it might have. Funding is another challenge for the administration of a certain treatment as a therapist/doctor has to convinces the people in power to fund the research as well and the administration of the treatment. This issue makes me wonder that how many treatment that could potential be a breakthrough to a certain mental disorder but was left aside because of lack of funding or opportunity.

The film shows many more issue and only a second viewing might I be able to voice it out clearly but overall the movie was very interesting, although the beginning, the pacing was a little show. Despite that, I really enjoyed the film and potentially going to view it a second time.