Source:
http://www.nikkixlife.com/2015/11/she-remembers-he-forgets.html?m=0
She Remembers, He
Forgets (哪一天我們會飛) is a
Hong Kong drama film directed by Adam Wong Sau Ping in 2015. He believes that everyone has a dream they want to follow in life. However,
people give up their dreams when they grow up and deal with a number of social
problems. Therefore, he uses youth and dream as the theme to guide the audience
to get back their passions and happiness in life. In this
film, Yu Fung Chi (Miriam Yeung) finds herself unfulfilled at work and have
unhappy marriage with Pang Shing
Wah( Jan Lamb) at home. One day, she attended a high school reunion and recalled her school memories with her
husband and another best friend So Bo Man (Ng Siu -Hin). Through the
memories, she found
back the past to pursue a dream of expectation and passion.
The
plot is set in the 90s, specifically in the year of 1992 when most Hong Kong
people consider this as the turning point in their collective memories, for
instance the mass migration wave and the Reunification in 1997. Memory is our
core identity and it is embodied
in sites of memory. In the film, the classmates of protagonists migrated to
different countries or study aboard such as USA and UK. Fung Chi’s father also suggested she could continue her study in UK
as Hong Kong was not the best option for her future career.Many middle-aged
people have resonances in this scene as they lose confidence and feel
pessimistic about Hong Kong future at that time after the large scale riots in
1967 and Tiananmen
Square protests of 1989. I believe that the director reinforces audience’s memory intentionally as
he wants to bring out the message
that Hong
Kong people have the same concern for Hong Kong future now due to the social and political problems are affected in
the society development such as Occupy Central and housing problem.They also
lose confidence in this living place which is same as the 90s.
Source: http://www.pentoy.hk/ wp-content/uploads/
In
the film, director encoded the current social value of dream in Hong Kong. He tries
to express his thoughts that ” Hong Kong is not a place for dreamers and we
will all just become a gear within a machine, is it really that easy to pursue
our dream?”. For our decoding for this message, we can see the representation
is very direct and suitable for the current social environment .Many audiences
think that the scripts can reflect their thoughts as they agree that social
value does
not allow them to pursue their dream in Hong Kong as the traditional ideology
of a well-paid job and a prosperous future has been rooted in people’s mind .Therefore,
that’s why many Hong Kong dreamers feel disappointed and even give up their
dream.This is the decode for audience to interpret
the film according to their social and cultural condition,which regarded as a dominant hegemonic position as the
viewer is operating inside the dominant code (Hall,2000) because of the scripts
and the film settings.
According
to Sarris( 2000), auteur style includes the characteristics that are repeated
in a director’s work as their signature.Adam Wong , the director of She
Remembers,He Forgets who has his personal interest in dream ,youth and freedom
in his work like”The Way We Dance”,”Magic Boy” . He usually delivers the message that we need to insist
on our dream as future is holding by ourselves in this work. His shooting characteristic is
originated from his background as he understands that it is hard for people to
develop their dream in Hong Kong as his experiences. Therefore,he hopes that it
can guide audience to seek for hope and imagination and encourage them to fight
for their goals bravely
through his film.
To conclude, She Remembers,He forgets is an
encouraging film for us to find hope and imagination of our future .This is a
motivation for us to pursue our dream and reminds us that ”dream is something
you still want to do when you stop breathing”, which is the most touching script in my heart.
Reference:
Hall, S.
(2000). Encoding/Decoding. In P. Marris
& S. Thornham (eds.). Media
Studies: A Reader. (pp.51-61). New York :New York University Press.
Sarris,A.(1962). Notes On
The Auteur Theory in 1962.Film Culture:
A Reader. (pp.563-564).United States.
Chan Hiu Yau(21620237)
Dear Hiu Yau, Though auteur theory may not be very appropriate in this case as there are only a handful of films produced by Wong, the discussion of the selected film is nice. The review of Hong Kong's social development has a loose linkage with your opinions towards the film. The film may not be an allegory but you can argue that it should be examined within such specific historical moment in Hong Kong. In fact, the theme of "dream" is carefully selected. This is reasonable for the analysis of the film.
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