I watched The Personals during our Modern Chinese Film and Theatre class on Thursday. I was so impressed by the artistic direction and cinematography. Rene Liu plays Du Jia-zhen, an ophthalmologist, whom on a rebound, decides to quit her job and meet different marriage suitors responding to the personal advertisements she puts up in the papers.
She gets to meet men of different professions, classes and educational backgrounds. The dialogues are witty and she is seemingly placed in a position of female agency where she gets to select the final contender whom could possibly be her Mr. Right.
During the process, we are prompted to think about marriage as an institution that is both inclusive and exclusive. People whom are eligible for marriage are judged based on the fulfilment of certain criteria such as gender (which of course has to be contrasting in a heterosexist society), age, race, class, educational qualifications, cultural backgrounds, crime record, and the list goes on.
The film portrays a handful of men (some of which are from the lower-class background) as undesirables and rejects--alluding to the suggestion that they might have been excluded from this institution of marriage due to their lackof or possession of 'non-normative' qualities, such as autism, visual-impairment and foot-fetish.
However, before we before we wax optimistic about how the film adopts a straightforward feminist perspective, just because the woman gets to choose, we discover that the tables are turned against her as she falls under the voyeuristic male gaze of these eager men. As she assesses and examines the males, she is also subjected to their constant judging and even sexual objectification and possible soliciting. A real estate agent talks about his obsession with adult movies and sexual fantasies openly; a tour guide suggests going to bed immediately to see if they can develop feelings, whom later reveals himself to be a married man; another is a pimp who advices Du to prostitute herself for a better life.
There are also many interesting ironies in the film. Du turns to marriage as the resolve for moving on from her broken relationship, and we later discover that her ex is actually a married man. Marriage is conventionally perceived to be the route to happiness, but in the end, it took a married woman cheated by her husband (Du's ex) to share with Du that she was not emotionally committed in the marriage at all. There is also another interesting revelation. Du aborts the baby she had with her ex and this suggests that she is subjected to a patriarchal discourse which frowns upon single mothers and only accepts pregnancies in matrimonial contract as legitimate.
Eventually, Du decides that it is pointless to meet more men as rushing into marriage will not help her resolve her problems. Interestingly, the people whom help her see the "light" are people whom are socially marginalised. One is a blind musician who exposes Du's persona as "Wu" (the surname she self-advertised in the personals). He recognises her voice as the doctor whom has treated him before and questions her if she has really "seen" through herself. The person who can't see and required treatment from the ophthalmologist now "cures" her of "blindness" in life. The other person who plays Du's confidante and lends her moral support, is a gay person who marries a woman and have kids, in order to be seen as "normal". The representation of gender, sexuality and marginality operates on countless dichotomous levels in this film, leaving one in poignant thought when the credits roll. It will be on my favourite list of films for a very, very long time.
No comments:
Post a Comment