Week 6 - Whale Rider

Whale Rider

Plot 

This film touches on the troubled times of when the Maori tribe faces many social issues as they look for a new leader to lead them out of the darkness.

Cognitive Dissonance

One of the recurring psychological phenomenon throughout the movie is Cognitive Dissonance, and we can clearly see it in the Apirana family. Cognitive dissonance is when there is conflict of two opposing views in the mind, both being present at the same time. It is easier to see it happening when someone has a specific belief or attitude about something or someone, but behaves differently.

Porourangi Apirana 

It can be seen that Porourangi loves his family and his tribe, but he does not stay and lead his people. We can see loving and affectionate moments between Porourangi with his parents and daughter, it was portrayed that their bond goes deep and they really do care about each other. 

He loves his father, but at the same time, he also despises how desperate he wanted an heir to save his people. Koro came off as being cold and unsympathetic towards the death of his wife and son as he tells him to “try again” and I can imagine the amount of stress and hope that Koro has placed on Porourangi’s shoulders.

We also see that Porourangi loves his Maori tradition and art, and keeps his roots close to heart.

Though after the death of his wife and son, he decided to leave Whangara and goes around the world to showcase Maori art instead of staying and taking over the role of being the leader of his people. He came home with a slideshow of his work to show his family.

He also left his boat half done as he travels and creates at the same time. Maybe he used his current work as an escapism for the conflicts that he is facing at that point of time, with his father and also with his love for his people.

Paikea (Pai)

When presented a choice to stay or go off with her father, she is also conflicted because she loves all of her family and culture. She loves her father, and wishes to go off with him after Koro told Porourangi to take her away. She felt hurt, but at the same time, she still loves Koro.

When she was leaving with her father, as they travel through the lands of Whangara, Pai saw the ancient whale that once belonged to her ancestor of the same name as her, Paikea, and she decided to stay. 

At this point, she probably felt deep in her heart that she was meant to be the next leader of her tribe, despite being female. As much as she loves her father, she decided to stay. As much as Porourangi wants his daughter to go with him, he respects her decision to stay.

Now she faces the inner conflict of leading her people and respecting her grandfather’s dedication to tradition. Deep down in her heart there is this calling, to be the next person who leads her tribe, but according to tradition, the leader has to be a male, and Koro follows the ways of the past very strictly. Koro didn’t prohibit Pai from coming to the school for boys, but he has many restrictions on things that she can or cannot do. Some completely sexist.


Koro prohibits Pai from learning how to use the taiaha, but she learns it in secrecy despite her love and respect for Koro.

Koro

Now Koro is a very complicated character who we know is loving and kind, but he too often stresses himself out and often robs himself of his own happiness, he doesn’t express himself much and bottles many things up. I guess that’s what it means to “be a man”?

He loves his son, and eagerly wishes for him to have an heir at the same time. When Porourangi’s wife and son passed away, he was heartbroken. He projects his emotions on to his son, and tells him that it’s okay, and he can try again.

At the same time, he puts a lot of hope and expectations on his son’s shoulders, and when he does not get the result he wished for, he robs himself and others of happiness.

In the beginning, he wished that Paikea had never been born, but he changed his mind. He loves Paikea, but also doesn’t really show it. Deep down, he still has some conflict about not having a grandson as an heir to the family bloodline, but having a lovely granddaughter that he loves.

He loves her, but at the same time denies her of the chance and opportunity to lead the tribe because the leader HAS TO BE male. This belief is one that hurts him and Pai the most, causing the most conflict and anguish within Koro himself.

At the end of the movie when Pai rides on the back of the original Paikea's Whale, Koro finally let go of his belief that the new leader has to be male, and realized that Pai was meant to be the next leader all along. 

After finding Pai, who got off the whale's back in the ocean, Koro asked for forgiveness by her bedside as he expresses that he acknowledges Paikea as the wise new leader he has been looking for, the one who will later lead his people out of the darkness.

Week 5 - Forget Paris

Forget Paris

Plot 

This film is a story on the love life of Mickey Gordon and Ellen Andrews, narrated by Andy and his other married friends to Liz, Andy's fiancee. The story shows the ups and downs of a relationship, portraying the relationship from the start and till after marriage. 

Triangular Theory of Love 

One of the ways to have a closer look at love would be through the triangular theory of love. This theory is made up of three basic and important components, mixed and matched to illustrate different types of love. 

It's basic components are :

1. Passion - A form of physical arousal that lead to strong emotions or desires.
2. Intimacy - The warm and loving feeling in a relationship.
3. Commitment - The decision to continue loving someone in the long-term.

The Roller Coaster Ride

Mickey was in France as his father wanted to be buried there alongside his platoon, the airport lost his father and after two days of being stranded at the airport, Micky finally meets Ellen. Ellen informs Mickey that they found his father after both of them were both sarcastic with each other in her office.

Mickey coincidentally meets Ellen again at dinner, he was witty and charming, but she had to leave. The next day, she was there with him for the funeral service, just the two of them. On the ride back, Mickey did all he could to charm Ellen in the car, making her laugh the entire ride. 

He postpones his flight, and asked if they could go sight seeing in France. She agrees and they visit all the iconic places together. And at the end of the night, he sang, they danced, they kissed.

Their advancement in France is the perfect story for Romantic Love, which is made out of Passion and Intimacy, where we see Mickey and Ellen being drawn together and attracted to each other physically, and that they have an emotional attachment to each other as well, everything was sunshine and rainbows. 

He flew back to America, but they miss each other, they call, write messages, and he flew to France when he was suspended from work. They had a passionate time together, and after that they were getting to know each other better.

The next day, she reveals that she is married and that she is very confused about the relationship, and now, so is Mickey. He left and went back to work, traveling all over, and one day as he was in a small motel room, Ellen appears!  

Surprise! I'm Married! 

Surprise! x2

Ellen shows up and they were nit picking of each other's small habits and they ignore the bigger chunks of a relationship, values, religion, dreams, lifestyle, and agree to marry each other based on strong passion itself. Their intimacy level is here but they don't fully know the person they're getting together with. 

Here they're entering Fatuous Love, with the components of Passion and Commitment. This means they're committed, but they're not exactly clear on who they're committed to. 

Two months later, the honeymoon is over and the marriage begins. Then Mickey had to be on the road again, and Ellen had to start over in terms of her career, this is when lifestyle comes into the picture. Things didn't go so well, and she wasn't happy with her life, that Mickey had to travel so much as she said "I didn't come all the way from France to be alone". She hated her new job and the apartment as well. Ellen was miserable.

As Ellen got offered a promotion, they compromise, Mickey started to work as a car salesman, they bought a small house and settled in. Ellen was the happiest she had ever been, but now Mickey was miserable. 

Ellen brought her father over, and he keeps mumbling the same phrase over and over "You want it, you got it, Toyota", and it's driving Mickey mad! 

I think that this finally pushed him over the line, and all the accumulated unhappiness led to him to decide to go back to refereeing for the NBA, the job he is passionate about. He informs Ellen, and she is not happy, but he leaves anyway.

Here, they have been operating based on Empty Love, where the passion died out, they're still getting to get to know more about the things that really matter about each other, and there is a lack of intimacy, the warm feeling in a relationship, and all that is left in the relationship is their commitment to each other.

Mickey and Ellen in a Therapy Session

So, as they were still operating with Empty Love, they were both unhappy and decided to see a therapist. They shout, they argue, they changed therapists, but were still unhappy. Mickey mentions that "I wish it could be like that week in Paris" to his friends, and that he misses the time where things were simpler. 

Ellen decided that she wanted to make the relationship work, she moved her father back to where her brothers are, and they decided that they were going to have children. Then the doctor lets them know that she can't have children.

They fail to have children at the end of the day, then Ellen got a job promotion and they have to move again, to Dallas or France. Mickey doesn't want to. 

They started comparing about what they give and get from the relationship, both of them are still unhappy. This time she's leaving and moving back to France.

The relationship hit an all time low, and all three components of love were shaky and dying off, even the commitment to the relationship is fading. This stage is similar to Nonlove, where people become acquaintances and not even friends. She flies back to France, and Mickey continues on with his refereeing. They don't talk anymore and they were just apart from each other. 

But at the end of the day, they remembered how it was like at the beginning of their relationship, and they still have a slight commitment with each other. It seems as if they had Forgotten Paris and why they got together in the first place. They got back with each other and decided to be together again. 

Which leads us to an interesting question:

Does love sustain marriage, or does marriage sustain love? 

Many relationships have the same pattern, where the passion dies out slowly across time, and not long after, the only thing that keeps it going is the commitment. If one doesn't know one's partner well, then one will end up with a roommate where they just sort of live together.

The penultimate relationship would be one of Consummate Love, where all three components are present in the relationship, where couples are Passionate about each other and desire each other physically, they are Intimate and know each other from head to toe, and that they are Committed to each other and also the relationship they have. 

I think that marriage in the form of commitment and intimacy, is one that sustains passion, and passion alone doesn't guarantee commitment or intimacy in the long run.  That's why a relationship to me is equivalent to finding my best friend, the idea of Companionate Love, where Intimacy and Commitment come together and there is closeness and this is really about finding a person I want to spend the rest of my life together with. 

That being said because Passion is a component that still withers as time passes, but I can take steps to ensure that I can still spark the passion in the relationship, I just have to be a little more creative with my best friend. 

Week 4 - Strictly Ballroom

Strictly Ballroom

Freedom

Among the many themes of existential psychology, one of the themes that struck me in Strictly Ballroom was the theme of freedom of choice. Jean-Paul Sartre believes that we are all born without having our fate set for us, that we are the ones who give our lives meaning, we have the freedom to be whoever we want to become, and we have the freedom to choose our very own destinies.

The movie title itself is "Strictly Ballroom", and to me, it implied that there are many set rules for a dance to be considered as ballroom dancing, that there are boundaries which dancers are supposed to stay within, taking away and restricting their freedom of choice, their freedom of expression.

The juxtaposition here is that dance is a form of expression that is free, just like many other art forms, be it music, painting, or poetry. The rules and boundaries set by Barry Fife, president of the Ballroom Confederation, denied dancers of the very essence of dancing, which is freedom.

The peak of the juxtaposition is when Les Kendall, Scott's dance coach, told him to follow the rules, and at the same time, told him "You have a light in you boy, let it shine."

Scott Hastings 

Just as Scott started to break free from the conventional world of ballroom dancing, he was constantly torn between two sides. 

On one hand, he loves inventing and using his new and creative dance steps because dancing is a means for him to express himself and to be true to his dancing would mean that he is true to himself. 

On the other hand, following the rules because that it is the safest way to win the competition, that it's what everyone is telling him to do, that it's what everyone including his mother, coach, and partner think is best for him. 

"I won't dance with you until you dance how you're SUPPOSED to dance."

Bad Faith 

Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir both described "Bad faith" as falling away from one's freedom of choice from the result of societal pressure, become inauthentic beings ruled by external forces instead of making conscious decisions for oneself. 

Authenticity

The opposite of bad faith would be to live with "Authenticity", which means to have authentic freedom when one is making choices, and even more so when one decides to involve oneself in projects that unfold possibilities for others, such as the pursuit of science and artistic endeavors.

Scott's Battle with Bad Faith and Authenticity

We see Scott swaying, and almost acting in the direction of bad faith when it was decided for him that he would be partnered up with Tina Sparkle, the reigning queen of ballroom dancing. 

As he contemplates, he was thinking of the chances he would have of winning the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix if he partnered up with Tina.

And as he was talking to Fran behind the curtains, he got a clearer picture of who he really wants to dance with, and the next thing he does is dance with her. 

Up till this point, Scott has been living his life with authenticity, dancing the way he wants to even though everyone else tells him not to, even if it may cost him the Pan-Pacific Grand Prix. Letting things be decided by others is also a sign of bad faith, as one is not actively deciding about what one really wants. 

Then we have Barry Fife, and the only one reason he set so many rules to constitute and define ballroom dancing, restricting other dancer's freedom of expression, is because ballroom dancing is business to him. 

"Where do you think we'd be if everyone started to make up their own steps?"

"Out of a job" 

What happens when a selfish businessman feels that his business is going to be sabotaged? Well, he used the same method he used on Scott's parents, manipulation. 

Seeing how neurotic Scott's mother is, he somehow planted ideas that if she danced with her husband and his flashy dance moves, she would lose everything, her title, the championship, and even her business. 

Scott doesn't know the truth behind his father's dancing, and Barry took this opportunity to lie about the past to get Scott to dance within the rules, to not make the same mistake as his father when he was younger, selling the idea that he'd be winning it for his parents, realizing their dreams.

This is when Scott showed bad faith, where he decides to listen to Barry and follow the rules, he did it in bad faith even if the reason was that he did it for his parents. 

Listen to Your Heart

At the finals, after Scott's father shouted "We lived our lives in fear!", with the lingering echo effect of the word "fear", it struck me. 

I started to ask myself some questions as the movie continues on.

How do I want to live?  

Who do I want to be? 

What would be a meaning life be like for me?

To live with authenticity is to live life with courage, even if society is against it, even if one has fears of taking the first step, as long as it does no harm. I think Scott's father's message made Scott ask similar questions, asking himself what really matters at this moment, was it the championship or was it dancing? 

We all understood Scott's dynamic answer to that as he slides into the ballroom, proceeds to dance with Fran. 

Scott lived and danced with authenticity. 

And the thing about living with authenticity is that when we live with authenticity, we give other people the permission to do so as well.