From Taiwan, in 1994, came Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman, whose title might betoken a loopy comedy; but, no, the film is merely a serious comedy, or comedy-drama, not a loopy one.  The four-word expression refers to food and sex, and it may well occur to us that in Lee’s film not much gets in the way of “eat drink” (for such is life in a developed country) but much does get in the way of “man woman” (quite common in any country).

The major characters are Chu, a middle-aged widower and master chef, and his three daughters, Jia-Chien, Jia-Jen and Jia-Ning.  None of the daughters is married yet or even has a boyfriend, although beautiful Jia-Chien, a white-collar airline employee, attracts the attention of two handsome men with whom she might become only superficially involved, if at all.  Jia-Jen is a Christian who teaches chemistry and is virtually regarded as an old maid, but has eyes for a public-school volleyball coach.  Jia-Ning is a teenager who works at Wendy’s and gradually wins over a co-worker’s beau.

Physical needs and wants must be tended to; they make up the routine.  But Chu wants to know if “eat drink man woman” is all there is to life.  A person like the religious Jia-Jen proves it is not, and yet the complete blocking of physical, or sexual, pleasure means the denial of sexual-amorous love.  This latter, sexual-amorous love, is on the horizon for Jia-Ning, the youngest daughter, but Jia-Chien, albeit she has been sexually active, is simply groping for it and Jia-Jen is beginning to grope for it (for the second time in her life?) until success occurs.

The film is perfectly, imaginatively directed by Ang Lee—a fine artist—who wrote the script with two other men.  An unpredictable, moving story it is, played out by admirable actors.  And there is superb music by Mader, sometimes jaunty and sometimes sweet in an Erik Satieish way.  To me, this early Lee achievement is one for the ages.

(With English subtitles)

Eat Drink Man Woman (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Elia Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass (1961), set in the late 20s, is about “the dangers of [sexual] abstinence” (Stanley Kauffmann).  It’s abysmally stupid.

The screenplay is flimsy and hyperbolic.  (It was written by Kazan and William Inge; the story is Inge’s.)  It is inexplicable for Warren Beatty’s Bud to break up with Natalie Wood’s Deanie, the girl he loves but who unhappily resists having sex with him.  It is absurd for Pat Hingle’s Ace, Bud’s father, to do . . . well, everything he does.

Hingle overacts, but I don’t think Wood does.  Her hysteria is probably right, no less than her gracefulness—and her beauty is assuredly right.  The look of the film is lovely, but the film itself isn’t.  It’s an unholy mess. . .  William Inge is the author of such decent plays as Picnic and Bus Stop.  Splendor, in which Inge ineptly plays a minister, is merely a homosexual writer’s cloak for expressing the desire to escape erotic inhibition.  This desire is sad, and we can sympathize with Inge even as we recoil from his movie.

Cover of Splendor in the Grass

Nader and Simin, A Separation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The chief character in Asghar Farhadi‘s A Separation (2011), Nader (Peyman Maadi) refuses to admit to his wrongdoing.  Frustrated, he will not pay a disappointing caretaker of his sick father her proper wage and pushes her out the door of his apartment to get her to leave.  The caretaker, Razieh (Sareh Bayat), who is pregnant, takes a minor fall and subsequently miscarries.  She and her angry husband blame Nader’s push for the miscarriage, thus an accusation of murder is made.  But, regardless of everyone’s suspicions, the evidence for this is not there.  (Does it matter to Iranian society?)  What’s more, Razieh herself refuses to admit to wrongdoing.  Yet I agree with David Edelstein that “What makes [A Separation] so good is that no one is bad.”  They’re just put-upon and fearful.

There is nothing genuinely good about familial separation in Farhadi’s vision.  Nader’s wife Simin (Leila Hatami) tries to divorce Nader because he will not leave Iran to go with her to a country more beneficial to their daughter.  Rightly the man declines to leave his Alzheimer’s-stricken father.  Simin’s desire to separate, and Nader’s willingness to let it happen, opens the door to a painful labyrinth.  A grand hiding of the truth emerges.  All the not-bad souls suffer, but they resemble most of those Chekhov characters who, rather than shoot themselves, respectably go on living.  Fortunately, Farhadi is not hiding the truth.

(In Farsi with English subtitles)