Blog 2

Watching "The Scent of Green Papaya" showed how much symbolism and messages the movie had without the actors and actresses saying much in terms of dialogue. The movie moved really slow but there was so much you could pick up just by the images and the situational things thats occured in the movie. Ironiclly women had alot of importance in this movie. They were still treated with less respect and less importance by the males in the movie but the focal point was highlighted on them, considering the main character was the servent girl Mui. Mui was a sweet girl that had a great appreciation for nature. There would be many times where she would be mesmorized by plants and animals, scrutinizing how they would live and grow. She loved looking and cookling the papya plants and it would excite her when the juices would drop from the plant. There was even a point where kept a baby cricket as her pet and made a caged home for it. This symbolized how the Vietnamese viewed their country and how important it was to them. The movie also symbolized the amount of hard work the Vietnamese people do everday. As a servant, Mui would wake up early every morning to do her dailey chores. The other servant and her made sure the house stayed clean and the men were fed everday, but with that came a lack of appreciation from the men in the movie.

The Father showed his disrespect to his wife my leaving her to have an affair with another women. Not only did he have an affair but took all the money that the family had to use to buy food and other things that was a necessary to their living style. The father did come back very ill, expecting his wife to aid him back to health, which she tried to do but soon lost him to death. Like the saying says "the apple doesnt fall far from the tree". The youngest son Tin treated Mui bad during her time there. It could have been because of how young he was, but he knew the differences between good and bad. There was different occasions where he would harass her and making her life more difficult making extra messes for her to clean. This was probably a common case because women were inferior to men in Vietnam during the time of the war. This is why Mui did nothing when the younger son harassed her or when the father would cheat on his wife, she would never comfront him about it. The middle aged son always seemed destresssed and bothered. I think he symbolized the people of Vietnam during the war because they were in constant battles in trying to gain there freedom and indepence. There was a time where he poured hot wax from a candle on the working ants and this symbolized the bondage and struggles the vitenamese faced trying to earn or even fight for their freedom.

The movie also showed how important materialistic things were to them. The mistress's cloths were important to her and the family because that is what made their money. She had to sell these to gain money to buy food for the family. She also had many valuable vases that were important to her. When Mui broke one of the vases, the Mistress acted like it wasnt anything serious but when she needed to sell her vases for her husbands health the value wasnt as great because the vase Mui broke was gone. Mui was also excited when she wore the dress and jewelry the mistress gave her. It was also important because the dress and necklace was suppose to be for the daughter who had passed away which showed the sentimental meaning behind it. The movie didnt need much talking to get the messages that it was trying to express across to its viewers and I think it did a good job of doing it.