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.