After spending countless hours browsing through movie after movie, I decided to select a film that first taught me about the variances in cultural knowledge between ethnic groups. award-winning director Bruce Beresford of films such as Driving Miss Daisy and Black Robe came together with producer Jane Scott to create ‘Mao’s last dancer’ a 2009 Australian film adaptation of Li Cunxin autobiography ‘Mao last dancer’. The narrative is in the perspective of main character Li a young Chinese boy taken from his parents and sibling aged 11 to attend a prestigious ballet school in Beijing escaping from marginalisation and Mao’s communist Revolution back home.
The film presents various challenges and themes known to be especially confronting to a western audience. A bilingual dialogue is persistently utilized throughout the entirety of the movie, providing the audience with an opportunity to actively engage with foreign cultures. Cultural homogenisation was an underlying theme depicted through the casting selection. The selection of two established American actors Bruce Greenword and Kyle MacLachlan were utilized to reach an American target market. Another example of cultural homogenisation lies in the director’s choice to change the structure of the film from chronologically to a ‘more dramatic structure’ he stated, by doing this it entices and eases the western audience into the switch between English and Chinese. Dubbing the film in Chinese wasn’t the only way to ease the audience into opposing tastes, Chinese customs are hinted throughout the movie such as: Bound Feet, Ginger tea, arranged marriages, Lucky look/three long toes and dust on cuts this is definitely out of scope for some viewers.
The Global north/south divide is a socio-economic term used to identify the divide between the first and second world countries and then the third world countries. It’s mainly dominated by America (North) who subsequently receive billions per year in the Hollywood movie industry. Australia is a part of the North and success of the north was shown again with the release of this movie making $4.3 million in opening week, the 15th highest-grossing film in Australia in 2009 and the 12th highest grossing Australian film of all time as of 2010. It premiered in Australia October 1 while the US didn’t begin screening until August 2010 the success didn’t stop there with Australian composer Christopher Gordon winning the “Best original Music Score’ at the 2009 AACTA awards.
Cultural proximity was also a present theme with the difficulties faced in getting authorisation to film specific location within the Chinese boarders. These challenges included the Chinese government’s sensitivity on the subject of Li Cunxin change of political standpoint and their reluctance to publicise events critical of their leadership. These challenges were worth it to use China’s location to create an authentic period, which is why many shoots were filmed in Beijing or around rural parts of China.
Mao last dancer is an extremely touching story of a young boys dream to freedom, it explores cultural knowledge through the eyes of a foreigner and looks at the ideas of cultural proximity, cultural homogenisation and the divide between the north and south.
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