Movie Review – Outside the Window

The Taiwan film Outside the Window is adapted from the semi-biographical novel of the same name written by Chiung Yao who is renowned for writing romantic novels. Most people know the author from the TV drama My Fair Princess adapted from her novel of the same name. Outside the Window is the projection of the author's experience. At the age of longing for dating, the high school student Jiang Yanrong who is sentimental, easy to be sorrowful, has literacy talent and lots of unrealistic fantasy slowly develops an underground love relationship with Nan Kang who is the Chinese teacher and takes extra care about Jiang. The old teacher is knowledgeable and naturally elegant. Girls' feelings are always poems. She is longing for pure love. Who does not like young and beautiful girls? Jiang is played by Brigitte Lin at the age of nineteen. That is her first debut in the film industry. The old man also falls in love and wants to be younger to match his lover. He fails his previous marriage. The female characters written by Chiung Yao mostly love falling in love. They see love as their religion. Adolescents grow in love relationships. Jiang finds emotional sustenance in her teacher and what she lacks at home. The student-teacher relationship which is taboo has to bear the rumor from the society, school and family. It is a big wide world outside the room where you can make your dream come true. The outside would represent freedom, hope and dream. When her mother discovers the relationship, she disagrees with the relationship and reports to the school the teacher seduces the girl. Why cannot her daughter have a decent love relationship? She does not want the old man to ruin her daughter’s future. The rebel daughter fights against her mother about the objection. After the complaint, Nan loses his job at the school. He left Taipei and found another teaching job in the countryside. Jiang’s mother introduces another man to Jiang who she thinks is reliable and can support her daughter’s future financially. A few years later, she compromises and settles down with the man chosen by her parents. However, Jiang keeps contact with Nan which makes her marriage appear a crack. Jiang decides to leave her husband and finds Nan. The teacher becomes decadent in the countryside and she cannot recognise him. They cannot go back to the time when they fell in love with each other. Everything passed.

The student-teacher relationship which is against the mainstream moral values in the society is not encouraged. What is the mystery of affection? Children who mature early and fall in love with older people are usually neglected at home and do not receive the love and care of their parents. Teachers should keep a certain distance from adolescent students of the opposite sex and ask other teachers of the same sex to help tutor the student to avoid being suspected of being inappropriate. Every case has its mystery. The father complex developed by the physiologist Freud explains that if females lack attention and care at the childhood age, they tend to find the muscular, strong and leadership-oriented senior male to compensate for the flaw from the child age. If females develop well at the child's age, they tend to find males who are similar to their fathers. In Outside the Window, Jiang falls in love with the teacher who has the father figure and recognizes her talent. Nan finds love from Jiang to compensate for the pain from his previous marriage. However, the students and teachers should set a line between each other. Students are still at the age of learning. Mature teachers should stop this affection from crossing the line.

July Rhapsody is a Hong Kong film about the student-teacher relationship. This film focuses on the teacher more in the student-teacher relationship. Lam Yiu-kwok is also a Chinese teacher who falls in love with his student Woo Choi-lam. The teacher has a mid-life crisis when he discovers his wife keeps contact with her old lover who is their Chinese teacher. He rears the child who belongs to his wife and the Chinese teacher. At the same time, he as a Chinese teacher has an affair with his student who shows her literacy talent in class. Does Lam have no fidelity to his wife? His wife has an unsolved relationship with the Chinese teacher. It leads Lam to have an affair with his student. In July Rhapsody, Woo’s talent catches the teacher’s attention. She is a student who lacks the caring as her brothers and sisters all perform well. Young and beautiful girls are such a temptation for men. Lam is considered a good man, a good teacher and a good husband. In his friend circle, everyone becomes a successful person who earns a great amount of money. He is just a teacher who loves teaching and lives a stable life. On the other hand, the storm between him and his wife arrives. His wife still takes care of her ex-lover who is their Chinese teacher. The relationship between their Chinese teacher and his wife is complicated. Lam can endure and raise the child who does not belong to him and their offspring together. Lam shows his big love in this husband and wife relationship. People who study language are more sentimental. However, their uncut relationship makes Lam lose himself and find consolation from a student. Even a good man will fall as a human has blood and flesh. It seems he becomes his Chinese teacher who also has an affair with a student. 

In conclusion, a taboo of the student-teacher relationship attracts the audience to watch this kind of film. The first film describes the oestrum of the student. The second film reveals the complex history behind the relationship between the husband and wife. So the husband makes a mistake with a student. The taboo is an affection that will not receive blessing from other people and society. However, behind every unusual affection, there is a clue that makes people perceive that it is reasonable.