Introduction
Communication is a critical element in building interpersonal relationships between individuals in the modern world. The multiple spheres, including economic, political, social, and cultural, depend on effective communication for better understanding between people. With the growing influence of globalization tendencies on contemporary people, communication remains a vital tool capable of connecting individuals from different cultures, classes, and religions. Interpersonal communication is the process of “mutual exchange of messages and behaviors” between interdependent individuals who influence each other (Berger, 2014, p. 9). Importantly, the appropriate use of interpersonal communication skills contributes to building effective relationships with people. Since interpersonal communication occurs on social, psychological, and cultural levels, its application in everyday life is crucial. Moreover, it is closely related to ethics since people exchange communicative units within the framework of their ethical considerations.
In the film “Farewell,” all these realms intersect to demonstrate how interpersonal communication defines the quality of life and the level of understanding between people and how it depends on cultural differences. For interpersonal communication to serve its purpose, cultural, ethical, psychological, and social dimensions should be integrated (Grad & Frunza, 2016). In the media, especially audiovisual ones, interpersonal communication is reflected in its multifaceted nature through its complicated dependence on socio-cultural domains. Using its both direct and indirect manifestations, the film director succeeds at portraying the complexity, ethical role, and uncertainties in intercultural communication.
Reflection
Although the whole film impresses viewers by the ambiguity of genre and the universal themes raised by the plot and the direction, particular scenes have significant meaning within the context of communication patterns. The first scene is the conversation between Billy and her parents at the beginning of the film when they first tell her about Nai Nai’s disease. At first, the parents do not want to tell Billy about the reason why they are sad. However, in response to their daughter’s persistent requests, they disclose that it is because Billy’s grandmother, Nai Nai, has been diagnosed with lung cancer and has three more months to live. The parents explain that the whole extended family has decided not to tell Nai Nai about her diagnosis to protect her (Wang, 2019). This decision was made by a Chinese tradition that prioritizes collective responsibility for individual suffering. What is striking about this scene is that, at this moment, the viewers first acknowledge the ethical dilemma and are presented with the two opposing perspectives, the American and Chinese.
The second scene is the one where, before the wedding, Billy confronts her mother and shares her childhood memories. She tells that she felt uninformed about essential things in her life; the lack of communication and knowledge made her suffer as a child (Wang, 2019). Being raised in Western society, it is unnatural for Billy to practice indirect communication, which is why it is so difficult for her to identify with her family’s decision to protect Nai Nai by lying. This scene is essential to analyze because it plays a significant role in the plot development of the movie. It unveils and accentuates the intersection of cultural and psychological domains of ethical decisions. Moreover, from the perspective of interpersonal communication, this episode explicitly demonstrates the differences in communicative approaches between Billy and her mother.
Application to the Film
When analyzing the film against the interpersonal communication criteria, one might state that the main character, Billy, does not have a definite understanding of what her communication with her family should be like. Indeed, in the scene where the parents inform her about Nai Nai’s cancer, Billy expresses her willingness to tell her grandmother about her illness because she deserves to know, it is her right (Wang, 2019). However, as it is shown in other scenes, Billy does not apply this disclosure principle to her own life; she conceals her financial problems and her personal life issues from her family in an attempt to protect them from worrying.
There is a difference between the way Billy perceives communication in the family and how her parents and extended family do. She was raised in the USA, and the Western culture shaped her worldview. However, her parents follow Chinese traditions and tend to conceal important information from other family members. According to Tranca and Neagoe (2018), positive communication contributes to positive relationships. Therefore, when advising Billy, I would suggest she learn the skills of positive communication. Also, Billy should facilitate her skills of reflection and feedback, as well as disclosure in communicating with her family (Hargie, 2016). Since the context of the analyzed communication is family, all characters need to acquire skills of openness and conflict resolution to maintain healthy and effective relationships (Berger, 2014). Thus, when improving these skills, the characters would be able to achieve agreement more efficiently and influence each other’s decisions on an interpersonal level.
While in the second analyzed scene where Billy opens to her mother, the main character’s verbal and nonverbal messages (words and tears) complement each other; they mismatch in Billy’s communication with her grandmother. Such an inconsistency delivers ambiguous messages, which is why the process of communication might be hindered (Deveci, 2019). At the same time, her mother is not as verbal as Billy is; instead, she demonstrates her emotions by nonverbal means. Therefore, Billy needs to learn the skills of nonverbal communication.
Application to Interpersonal Communication
Despite the imperfections in the application of interpersonal communication skills by the characters in the film, there are numerous advantages of watching the movie and learning about complex culture-dependent communication from the characters. Indeed, according to Thakker et al. (2017), culture-induced cognitive experiences define the ways people interact and what they perceive as proper communication. In the analyzed scenes, the individualist American view is opposed to the group, or collective, Chinese view on decision-making and responsibility. Thus the message implying care, love, and compassion is transmitted through indirect nonverbal communication, concealing the truth. The viewers might learn from the film something that Adigwe and Okoro (2016) call the “quality of presence” where an individual delivers a communicative message via nonverbal facial expressions and silence (p. 3). The power of implied meanings that do not necessarily need to be articulated to be understood by another person is an important lesson taught by the movie.
The Western perspective, actively promoted by Brown (2010), emphasizes the importance of an individual’s openness and prioritization of self when engaging in interpersonal communication. On the contrary, in Eastern tradition, the burden of painful truth is distributed among family members, thus protecting the beloved person from suffering (Chen, 2019). However difficult it is to leverage these two contrasting approaches in the life of an immigrant, it is crucial to prioritize the relationship with a person. Another issue that the film teaches the audience is the complexity of interpersonal communication modes when they are viewed within a particular context. As the scenes demonstrate, context matters because Billy abides by the family’s decision to lie to Nai Nai for a better cause. Her communication with her parents and grandmother is dictated by the roles and responsibilities of the communicators.
Conclusion
In summation, the film directed by Wang (2019) provides a vivid and realistic portrayal of interpersonal communication impacted by multiple influential factors such as cultural differences, psychological issues, relationships, and context. The characters in the analyzed scenes from the film demonstrate how the quality of their communication is dependent on the collision of two cultures, Western and Eastern. The main character’s ethical dilemma induces her inconsistency in establishing interpersonal communication with her family. To improve it, she should learn nonverbal communication skills, reflection, feedback, and openness.
At the same time, the mode of communication used by the Chinese family in their attempt to protect their dying relative from pain, knowing the truth about her terminal illness, is aspiring. The practical usage of nonverbal communication allows for maintaining cultural traditions and engaging in meaningful and influential communication. The movie teaches about the complexity of interpersonal communication skills application in real life due to the necessity of leveraging multiple factors, including noises, ambiguities, ethical and cultural differences. Moreover, particular scenes demonstrate the power of indirect communication and the quality of presence, which play a significant drole in building trusting and high-quality relationships between people.
References
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Brown, B. (2010). The gifts of imperfection: Let go of who you think you’re supposed to be and embrace who you are. Hazelden Publishing.
Chen, B. X. (2019). The cultural truth at the heart of the lies in ‘The Farewell.’ The New York Times. Web.
Deveci, T. (2019). Interpersonal communication predispositions for lifelong learning: The case of first year students. Journal of Education and Future, 15, 77-94.
Grad, I., & Frunza, S. (2016). Postmodern Ethics and the Reconstruction of Authenticity in Communication-Based Society. Revista de Cercetare si Interventie Sociala, 53, 326-336.
Hargie, O. (2016). Skilled interpersonal communication: Research, theory and practice. Routledge.
Thakker, D., Karanasios, S., Blanchard, E., Lau, L., & Dimitrova, V. (2017). Ontology for cultural variations in interpersonal communication: Building on theoretical models and crowdsourced knowledge. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 68(6), 1411-1428.
Tranca, L. M., & Neagoe, A. (2018). The importance of positive language for the quality of interpersonal relationships. Agora Psycho-Pragmatica, 12(1), 69-77.
Wang, L. (2019). Farewell [Film]. Ray Productions.