Rasika to In The Mood For Love

Over this week I revisited two of my favourite movies and chose to review one of them. I watched Ennu Ninte Moideen(Malayalam) and In the Mood For Love(Chinese). I have watched both these movies before, and they are films that have moved me immensely. Both of these films would broadly come under the frame of love stories with rather tragic ends, but what has stayed with me is the human spirit that allows for people to continue living after such powerful experiences of loss. Most importantly I wondered about how some stories have this immense power of drawing us into their fold and extracting deep emotions.

I chose to review In The Mood for Love through the Rasika framework for 3 reasons - 1) It was a foreign language, and I was curious to study if my understating of the Metaphors change due to language. 2) I wanted to understand if the idea of subjective experiences as stated by George Lakoff is limited by new social or cultural experiences. 3) As I have watched this film already, does going back to it make me feel less. 

Read more of my analysis here. Click on the image to enlarge. 

George Lakoff in his book Embodied Cognition lists various factors, and actions that result in the creation of the Subject - Self Metaphors. Below is an infographic I created for the same. 

The idea of Empathic Projections and Essence that he speaks of are very similar to the Rasa Theory, where we draw the meaning/metaphors within us to engage with new experiences and apply it to varied frames. So, when George Lakoff says that, ‘meaning must be embodied’ he means that for a relationship (Sahridhaya) to be built, or for the essence(Rasa) to be felt, there should be a movement beyond the manipulation of the senses. The ‘essence’ of the emotions experienced are deeper cognitive, neural actions which cannot function in isolation. Similarly, the Vedanta Philosophy of Indian Art considers art experience as a sublimation of reality, and as an act of creating a new vision of the world by changing the relationship of the self with the world, and creating a more holistic experience. Lakoff speaks of a similar process which he calls ‘Neuro Simulation’ an act of imagining or creating new ideas based on self-metaphors.

Lakoff's idea of ‘multiple selves’ also supports the framework of sublimation in Indian art philosophy. Through the concepts of  'Empathic projections’ ‘Essence’ and ‘Essential Self,’ he states that “There is no one consistent structuring of our inner lives since metaphors can contradict one another.” He also goes on to say, “Only ‘oneself’ is compatible with an essence, and this is the real-true self.”

On engaging with Lackoff’s Embodied Cognition, I am tempted to deduce that it is only those experiences which establish cognitive connections with the embodied metaphors of the ‘real-true self’ that create Sahridhaya. 

Lakoff  also states that “Anglo American Philosophy because of its own deep-seated metaphors, recognises neither the cognitive unconscious nor conceptual metaphors." He then goes on to list the various cognitive actions that allow for the creation of the Self Metaphor System. I have created an infographic to explain Lackoff's system. 

What has been fascinating about reading George Lakoff, is his idea of the duality of the metaphors both within and outside of the self. In this way, he explains the act of creating meaning as a method of interaction of various senses which are internal and external. His ideas around Empathic Projections also helped me better understand my own question of why certain art expressions move me beyond certain others, every single time!  

My immediate responses after the viewing.