Analysis of The Joy Luck Club Film by Wayne Wang - Essay Example

?The Joy Luck Club INTRODUCTION The film, ‘The Joy Luck Club’ is a remarkable presentation from the director Wayne Wang. Written by Amy Tan in the year 1989 as a novel, the film was made and released in the American theatres in 1993. The film is based on the relationship between Chinese-American women and their mothers Chinese by ethnicity. The film captures beautiful hues of human emotions and also captivates the life of Chinese immigrants in the United States, their joys and sorrows, grievance and gaiety along with their rise and fall. The film is co-written by Amy Tan and Ronald Bass and it stars Ming-Na, Rosalind Chao, Lauren Tom and along with many others. The inception of the prologue in the film and the presentation of the film along with its large scaled and detailed camerawork have made the film appear like a river dancing to the tune of wind or fall of words from poetic imagination. This essay intends to focus on the thematic aspect of the film, along with its myriad technical dimensions which provided it a strong and unique perception altogether. THE JOY LUCK CLUB: THE TRAJECTORY Life has different twists and turns, crest and fall and people amid all the complexities and hustle and bustle of life forget to retaliate upon the lost moments of profanity. The film Joy Luck Club captures and upholds different subtle and intimate moments between families and life where subtle and intricate human relations and values operating upon the matrix of myriad social and economic aspects find its profound expression. The film depicts a development of a club formed by four women; it can be seen as a strong discourse of women empowerment depicted within the societal change and structure of contemporary America. The club had a different objective, the members of the club indulged themselves in playing, ‘mahjong’ and over the span of years they have involved themselves in telling and sharing the stories of their lives with each other. Their life trajectory speaks particularly about a societal transition in America. And, various dimensions of Chinese immigrants to America surface out with full force into the plot of the film. The women discuss their passage to America from China, their pursuit and dream, their desire and disappointment. The way they remarried in America for a better life and gave birth to their children on this land itself are very much contextual. Another theme of the film is the space or vacuum that evolves due to generation gap and a space which forms due to the transition of culture and inter-cultural exchanges against the cosmopolitan backdrop. One can find highly ambitious mothers setting high hopes and keeping high faiths upon their daughters who are about to replace them. The daughters face a lot of troubles treading down the paths of success full of anxieties and a stark feeling of inappropriateness that haunts them. Moreover, through the course of understanding and empathizing with each other, the mothers and daughters at the Joy Luck Club are able to bridge their differences (Johnston, “FILM / The tears of living dangerously: Wayne Wang called Oliver Stone's films evil; Stone called Wang's boring. The novelist Amy Tan brought them together. By Sheila Johnston”). The film is initiated with a short prologue by June; a narrative which is very poetic in appeal and followed by June’s farewell party at San Francisco and her plunge to reunite with her long forgotten twin sisters at China indicate a sense of unification with one’s forgotten root that build the essence of the theme operating within the film. There are also guests at Joy Luck Club, mainly constituted by the mothers, their daughters and the friends and relatives. Each of the members narrate their story of conflict, dream and struggle in the alien land of the United States of America which builds a strong discourse upon the nature of immigration and life of the immigrants in America. The most fascinating technical aspect of the film ‘The Joy Luck Club’ is its cinematography and tight-lipped editing apart from the acting of the cast in the film. The cinematography if the film is being executed by Amir Mokri and the editing is done by Maysie Hoy. The dolly shots, the sharp camera angles and the close shots of the scenes with sequenced editing and close shots captured the exuberant and different dimensioned emotions of the actresses which proliferated with their facial expression. Nobody would be able to deny the powerful acting by the actresses Ming-Na, Rosalind Chao and Lauren Tom. The prolific acting of these actresses took the film ‘The Joy Luck Club’ into a different dimension and realm greater than mundane films on Chinese immigration and way of life. The paradoxes and bonding present within the mother-daughter relation gave the film a platform where any individual entity would be able to connect them-selves to produce a unique effect. As a matter of fact, the concept of a club like that of the Joy Luck Club is unique in its own flavor and presentation (Kim, “The Joy Luck Club”). CONCLUSION The film did more or less well at the box office and was critically acclaimed for the presentation of the images of a Chinese-American kid beyond being champions of spelling bee winners. A community alien into a land yet striving to have a space and its own identity within the territory has many intricate emotions and newly waved discourses to share. Chinese American community is not an exception in this regard and the film, The Joy Luck Club projects the sentiments and emotions of the community which is lost and dwindles for the quest of identity and surges to establish its own place no matter how much bizarre or struggling the trajectory might appear. The bridging of the generation gap, the extension and carrying forward the legacy are amid the vital subjects of the postmodern texts. This theme has found expression in the films produced at the wake of the twenty-first century as well. Nevertheless, the greatest challenge was to accommodate the themes of generation gap with that of immigrant life. And, this was so moderately executed and well accommodated within a plot so unique and fresh of its kind that for these emotional contents, the film, The Joy Luck Club would be a piece of timeless and intellectual work (Welsch, and Adams 51). Works Cited Johnston, Sheila. FILM / The tears of living dangerously: Wayne Wang called Oliver Stone's films evil; Stone called Wang's boring. The novelist Amy Tan brought them together. By Sheila Johnston.1994. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. Kim, Susan. The Joy Luck Club. n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2013. Welsch, Janice R. and J. Q. Adams. Multicultural Films: A Reference Guide. United States of America: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005. Print. Read More