A Critical Essay on the TV Movie Work Anima and Animus
Instructor：Peggy Chiao
Student：Ping-Chuan Kao
Anima and Animus, a 79-minute long TV movie, deals with sexual identification of youngsters. This is the second TV movie I directed for Life Story TV Movie Series on Public Television Service (PTS). This is also the second TV movie, after The Soul of Bread, that I collaborated with Shi-Geng Jian, a scriptwriting student in our graduate institute.
This TV movie is shot in Digital Betacam format. In the beginning, the scriptwriter had an idea of a drama on gender issues and finished the first draft of the script. Mr. Jian and I discussed the feasibility of making it into a film, and the discussion led to slight adjustments of the original draft. Then, we approached a production company and secured their commitment on producing the film. Finally, this project was selected for Life Story drama series on PTS.
The production team did not raise additional funds. We shot the film with the budget provided by PTS. The preproduction lasted for one and a half months, the production period fourteen days, and the post-production around three weeks. The film was successfully delivered to PTS, premiered in April, 2007, and drew a positive response from its audience. It also won an Audience Choice Award in the first Educational Film Festival in 2007.
This essay primarily examines the methods of execution in terms of a production work, including directorial concept and aesthetic interpretation. In addition, since this film deals with problems in adolescent growing-up experiences, issues on gender and self-identification are explored in this essay. Theories of Carl Jung and Simone de Beauvoir are discussed. I found the former neglected the influence of the society and the latter implied pessimistically social determinism. The writer of this essay believes that L. Baird’s “sex role transcendence” theory, which envisions the possibility for individuals to transcend stereotypical social expectations on gender roles, suits the society better. One of the essential messages of the film is the belief that everyone can choose his or her own gender and act without the confinement of stereotypes.