This week I have watched a quite “fascinating” and “enjoyable” movie (If you notice my tone, it might sound sarcastic, haha.. But don’t worry I’ll try to love it!). Hmm… what is the title? I know you already know about it, so I don’t want to talk about it. Okay, let me continue what I’m going to write here. Those are the answers for the first four questions that are given to me. We haven’t discussed about it yet in class.
1) Describe the physical appearance and mannerisms of Sandy and Tachibanna. Do they reinforce or challenge the stereotype of males and females of a particular nationality?
Answer: Sandy and Tachibanna have a lot of differences whether in their physical appearance or mannerism. Sandy is a western woman, has a white skin, blond hair and blue eyes. She likes to wear casual attires. In the sense of mannerisms, she is a talkative woman and straight forward when saying something. Although she curses a lot, she wasn’t particular about table manner. Sandy also seems to look like a stubborn and aggressive woman as been said by Tachibanna. Furthermore, she has a bad habit which is smoking. She smokes a lot.
On the contrary, Tachibanna has a different physical appearance and behaviour . He is an eastern male with yellowish skin, black short hair and skinny. He is a Japanese who loves to wear a formal clothes and almost of his clothes in this movie were black in colour. As an eastern society, his attitude is more courteous. He is quite reserved and he avoid to say no because in Japanese culture, saying no is considered as rude. This showed his upbringing. Tachibanna was quite obsessed in practicing the Japanese tradition. He would bows and shows his named card to introduce himself to others. At first he came to Australia, he likes to sit at back of car and preferred to listen to Japanese music rather than rock songs.
When Sandy and Tachibanna met for the first time, Sandy felt uncomfortable with how Tachibanna behaved. She thought that the Japanese culture is awkward. However, as they knew closer to each other, finally Sandy can accepted the ridiculousness of the Japanese culture when she showed her interest to learn Japanese language and culture.
2) Sandy’s mother is quite morbid as she likes to cut out and collect obituaries. Sandy accuses her mother of being sick as she is interested in Death. Her mother retorts, “There’s nothing sick about death. It’s part of being alive.” This statement is a premonition that prepares the viewer for the climax of the story. What is this climax?
Answer: The climax of the story is the Tachibanna’s death. He died after dived into a river and unfortunately his neck was broken.
3) Tachibanna is impressed by the vastness of the mine, the machinery and the open space of the desert as compared to the enclosed space in Japan?
“In Australia there is a lot of space and no people, in Japan there is a lot of people and no space. There’s nothing out there. It scares me.”
Is the setting important in the plot of this movie?
Answer: Absolutely, because the setting of the open space of the desert shows how Tachibanna and Sandy’s attitude changed. When Tachibanna said that Australia has a lot of space and no people, and Japan IS vice versa, this means that both of the countries have apparent differences where there is more freedom in Australia and people in this country tend to live in their own life without concern to others because the distance between two towns in Australian desert are very far. Otherwise, in Japan, its society is controlled by their customs and because of that they are closer to each other.
Almost of the plot in this movie occurred in the desert. At first they arrived at the desert, both of them didn’t have a mutual understanding. Sandy always felt sick to the Tachibanna’s behaviour . She felt uncomfortable to see Tachibanna snapping photos while she drove the car and also when she listen Tachibanna converse using mobile phone especially when he used Japanese language. However, the incident of being stuck in the bog had changed their personal opinion to each other. They became more amiable and did everything together.
4) How has the misadventure of being stuck in the bog affected their relationship?
Answer: Since then, they started become closer and become tolerant to one another. At first, they always quarrel because Tachibanna didn’t try to help Sandy when they were stuck in the bog. Nevertheless, after Tachibanna is scolded by Sandy, he started to lend a hand. They became intimate friends after successfully escaped from the desert. This incident also was a starting point where Sandy started to fall in love with Tachibanna.
Tachibanna ??
