Commentary: The Wedding Banquet by Ang Lee
This commentary will be centred upon Anh Lee’s award-winning art film ‘The Wedding Banquet’. In this commentary I will be analysing the techniques and devices used within the 1993 work, during this analysis I will be discussing the contextual elements and their implications within ‘The Wedding Banquet’.
The art film the wedding banquet tells the story of Wai-Tung and his secret lover (Simon) who have been living together as an openly gay couple within the United States. However, Wai-Tung has not yet come out to his Taiwanese parents as a gay man. In order to ease the pressure, put upon his boyfriend by his parents to find a wife, Simon suggests Wai-Tung marries a Chinese immigrant by the name of Wei-wei
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Family being an important factor within Chinese society is further shown through this scene as the father is willing to hide seemingly pleasant news from his family for the sake of preserving the traditional Chinese family unit. A mother, father and children. He then goes on to say that if he had not let his son and Weiwei lie to him he would have never gotten a grandchild. This is where the theme of compromise comes to the forefront of the film, despite the fathers inherently traditional views he is able to overlook the fact that his son had lied to him because he has now for filled his duty of carrying on the family name by producing an heir.
The importance of grandchildren/offspring can be linked to a contextual element that is crucial to the film, this is Confucianism. Confucius emphasised the fulfilment of duties , ‘Filial piety’ can be anything from simple chores or expectations but for first sons or only sons such as Wai-Tung he has a duty to continue on the family name by producing offspring. It is one of Confucius’ beliefs that your life is unfulfilled if you do not have children and this is a sentiment that is still apparent in China