EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN high low wide close
How Ang Lee uses simple angles to demonstrate dynamics in a scene
Eat Drink Man Woman is Ang Lee’s third feature; though he has a bigger budget and more expansive cast (and several more delectable food prep montages), he still values simplicity of shots. In this classroom scene, several different power dynamics and internal struggles play out in under 90 seconds through mostly locked-off shots and hi/low angles.
A volleyball flies into the classroom. As teacher Jia-Jen walks it out of the room, a student stands from the seated group, setting himself apart as he demands ‘give it back!’
Cut outside to a low-angle closeup looking up at Jia-Jen; we hear “Sorry!” and as she looks we cut to a high-angle medium shot of hunky vollyball coach Ming-Dao.
Their exchange continues in these angles until Jia-Jen throws the ball, and we get a quite-wide shot which shows her high above, him far below . . . and a crowd who have clearly been watching their Romeo-Juliet-flirtation with much interest.
Back to Ming-Dao — same angle, but closer now, more intent — as he bows and runs off, then Jia-Jen returns to her class, where the “it” the student was demanding is the first thing we see, before panning to Jia-Jen as now the only one standing in the sea of seated students.
She demands to see it, and walks to the student; when he stands, Jai-Jen is so much shorter she demands he sit immediately so she can restore the power dynamic; she very much isn’t good at being equal or lower, she wants to be higher to feel in control.
Once he is seated she scolds him for ‘dirty letters' and says they ‘don’t belong in class’ but it’s clear from the context as well as the repeated high/low angles, that it’s herself she is chastising for the prurient thoughts she was having about Ming-Dao.
When she crumples the letter, there’s a lovley and hilarious closeup eye-level shot which racks from the letter to the student’s face also crumpling in (sexual) frustration
before Jia-Jen tosses the letter and the camera pans to the wastepaper basket at a low angle . . . which she misses, after all.
Is the ‘miss’ an intentional callback to how a vollyball coach who claimed to ‘miss’ straight through a door two floors up and over a balcony, and Jai-Jen actually not feeling about love what she says? Or did they simply take the best pan and it happened to be one where actress Yang Kuei-mei missed her shot? Hard to know . . .
But what is surely intentional are the angles, and what Lee is saying with them here.