No
doubt that "culture" has a strong relation with our daily life. It
provides a reflexive network for people to situate the forces constructing our
daily lives and our lives are constructing by the "text". But how
many people really know what "text" is? Now let me briefly explain what
is the idea of text. Cultural text not only includes written but also films,
photograph, fashion and etc. It comprises all the meaningful artifacts of
culture. Nowadays I think film is one of the major cultural text which can
reflect our daily life and the culture, and in turn it can affect them. It is a
important art form not just for entertainment but also it is a power method for
education. In the past few years, Hong Kong people love to talk about
"collective memories", "identities" and "sense of
belonging", therefore I have chosen a film that related to those topics.
And I will discuss why this film become popular and how it related to them.
Echoes
of the Rainbow (歲月神偷) is a 2010 Hong Kong local drama film. It directed by Alex Law and
starring Simon Yum and Sandra Ng. The story is mainly focusing on the Law's
family. Jin-Er is a 8 years old children who lives with his parent and he has a
elder brother call Jin-Yi in a shoe shop on Wing Lee Street in late 1960s Hong
Kong. This film has descript how Hong Kong people deal with changes of the environment.
The director used a thief to represent time. Time just like a thief who has stole
all the wonderful thing from us.
In
recent years, people have pay more attention on "identities", "memories"
and etc. One of the reason that make Echoes of the Rainbow is because it is
talking about the story of Hong Kong people. And the director has found some of
the "old place" for the shooting. Such as Wing Lee Street and Diocesan
Boys' School. Many people descript it as "our story" and many of them
through this film find back their "sense of belonging" on Hong Kong
and "self-identity". But is it truth? Although identities seem to be
the ground in the past, it always can be constructed and made within discourses.
And It can also about "becoming who we want to be or being who we thinking
we should be". Also, memories seems to be something that belong to us but
it has a possibility that it is constructed by other people. "Remembering
is always a practice of reconstruction and representation". People are
tend to show and remember the best thing rather than the bad thing. Just like
this film, it always promoted that how hand Hong Kong people deal with changes
and how good in the past. But there are always have different between the
memories and the truth. Thing in the past are always better than the thing in
nowadays.
I
believe that most of people can remember in that year, many people focusing on
the conservation issues of Wing Lee Street after this film has screened. Many
people advocate keep this street but why they want to keep it? How many of them
have pay attention on this street before this film? It can showed that how powerful
film is. It not just affect their daily life, but also their memories and mind.
Reference:
陳志華 (2010).《歲月神偷》到底偷走了甚麼？ Retrieved April 19, 2012. from http://gucao.net/blog/2010/03/01/20100301/Shek Wing Yan (10383996/ 20855522)
The review has adopted a very critical perspective in examining the central theme of “collective memory” depicted in the film. Some relevant theories have been applied to decode the identity issues and to examine a kind of “second hand memory” constructed by pervasive media representations nowadays
ReplyDeleteOne little suggestion is that you can reduce the weight on explaining what is “cultural text” and be focused on the part of discussion (i.e., the last two paragraphs). You may also identify and compare the sources of pleasure derived by different groups of audiences (e.g., youngsters and elderly), which may further elaborate your arguments on the cultural myths of “collective memories” share among almost all of us.