Linked by Food

In Eat Drink Man Woman, Ang Lee tries to use his camera to display the energy and innovation hidden in food. More than visual enjoyment, Ang Lee also provides the complicated expression of Chinese people. There is a tradition among Chinese that at big festivals all the family members gather together to share a big dinner. Someone in the family usually prepares the food carefully.
Eat Drink Man Woman tells the story of an old father and his three daughters. Chu is one of the few masters in Taiwan who can make traditional Chinese dishes as arts. His wife died early so he raised the three daughters up all by himself. Now his daughters are all independent. Every week, Chu makes a full table of nice dishes for the family reunion, but his hard work is not at all attractive to his daughters, who are all busy dealing with their own love affairs and ignore their father’s worries.
Dinner, in Lee’s film, is a mirror to show the problems undergoing in the family. During every dinner, there is always an abrupt announcement from a family member. The unexpected news includes pregnancy, marriage and moving out. The surprising effect shows the lack of communication in this Chinese family. Firstly, Jiajen announces she has bought a new apartment and ready to move out. During the second dinner, the youngest sister says she is pregnant and decides to get married with her young boyfriend, who has never been introduced to any family member. During the third dinner, the oldest sister of the family tells her finished marriage ceremony. And the last dinner is the climax in the film when Mr. Chu himself reveals his secret relationship with Jinrong, a lady more than 20 years younger than him and always considered as a sister by Chu’s daughters. Every big decision of life is made without receiving any opinion in the family and the dinner table is a place for announcement but not a place for discussion.
Food is also a way to express love. Careful preparation involves love to others. In the film, father makes delicacy for the daughters; Jiajen makes a table of dishes for the man she loves. These dishes provide both visual satisfaction and excellent flavors, showing the heart and love of the preparers. At the end of the film, the soup the daughter makes help Chu to get back his sense of flavor, which is a kind of unrealistic fantasy created by the director to display the reconnection between the father and the daughter.
It is interesting here that Ang Lee not only uses food as a link between family members in the film, but also as a link to Chinese culture and life for audience.

February 9, 2008