Mao's Last Dancer Belonging

The film, Mao’s Last Dancer utilises the narrative convention of plot to allow the audience to appreciate the film. In the film, the narrative convention of plot is used to provide an overview of the historical and sociocultural knowledge of China at the time. For example, the film’s plot is constructed in a non-linear timeline through which Li travels back and forwards via flashbacks. A prominent example of this is one of the film’s establishing scenes. In this scene, Li flashes back to a classroom in his home province. Here, an inspection is occurring, Li’s classroom is asked to sing a song honouring Chinese dictator, Mao Zedong. This eludes that the government in the country may be forcing their communist propaganda on the people. Do we

Dialogue in the film shows Li’s communist based-beliefs and Eastern culture contrasted to Western culture and capitalism. Because of this, the audience does not require knowledge of Chinese historical and sociocultural context, as they see an example of it in the film, which they can compare to their own culture. For example, after Li and Chris go shopping, Li says to Chris “My Father worked very hard. He earned fifty dollars in one year and you spent five hundred dollars in one day. Why did you do this?” Chris then says to Li “I’m not trying to influence you, it’s just what people wear here, that’s all. That’s probably why your government gave you this suit; it’s just a trifle out of date is all. Accordingly to this audial code, the audience can deduce that China is largely poverty-stricken and influenced by the government. To put simply, the audio code of dialogue presents knowledge of context, giving the audience a greater appreciation of the

Conventions, when used together create a greater effect and impose ideas on the audience. For instance, in one scene Li is shown in a classroom at the Beijing Arts Academy where the teachers are telling the children about the stages of communism. During the discussion, the teachers say that China has the highest standard of living in the world and capitalist and imperialist countries have the lowest. When asked by Li if it is horrible in these countries the teacher responds “ Unimaginable! Students. Unimaginable!” After this, disco music fades in and it transitions to another scene where Li is in a nightclub in America. Here, he is watching people dance and has a conversation with Dilworth. Dilworth talks to Li about Chairman Mao and Li responds, “ I love Chairman Mao. He do many great things.” Dilworth then responds I don’t feel the same way about our president” Li then hushes Dilworth and asks him if he’s scared to which Dilworth responds “ Scared, No! This is America Li.” As a result of the use of symbolic code of Li’s surroundings and the audial filmic codes dialogue and music in these scenes, some of China’s sociocultural context is given to the audience. The idea that Mao’s regime worked to deceive people of other systems of government is imposed. On account of this, an appreciation of the film and Li’s story