| Movies attract people with two weapons; lots of fun and emotional charge touching people¡¯s feeling. While fun is to make movie watchers amused, emotional charge is to ease inner inconveniencies that have grown within us through heartfelt empathy with the movies. Fun offers movie fans new fantasy and smile with the scenes and settings we can not easily experience in the real world we are living, and emotional charge offers the realistically identical commonality between the characters¡¯ lives and ours. Fun is a recreational compensation which breaks our logical expectations along with something eye-catching like handsome actors and beautiful actresses, and on the other hand, emotional charge is a psychological compensation presenting the conflicts among the characters, and their progresses on how to solve their conflicts. Accordingly, we watch movies in order to look for fun as well as to find psychological solace and emotional solutions which we can get easily from our reality. If taking a look at only the emotional charge out of the benefits movies offer to us, it is evident that movies appear to be very much alike with our own life. Conflicts and their dissolutions among characters, which are the proximate causes of emotional charge are coming from our daily life. Because conflicts in relationships among us in the reality are being expressed through the characters, we watch the reality reflecting our own problems psychologically, even though it looks like watching an imaginary world displayed on the screens physically. Consequently, the screen with the characters being shown on it is a kind of a mirror to us. The characters are exactly who we are. The fact that we can get solace and solutions of our problems from watching movies are obviously due to the function of mirror movies have. We can get the relatively objective solutions by watching our problems in our detachment from it, which is like giving advice to two players who can¡¯t see their solutions while being too attached with their problems. Now, let¡¯s watch movies together with family. In particular, we should watch a movie when a family member has some problems, or when a family member hasn¡¯t performed his/her roles in a proper way, but when we are concerned about breaking down the bondage family members should have resulting from pointing out what problems he/she has. The first step should be a selection of movie, which should portray as much similar problems or conflicts as our family has. Once it was selected, please just enjoy watching the movie without any demand from family members. This is the first phase we can take in the process of enrooting the event of movie watching together in our family. The second phase is a mode where the problems our family has can be identified in a more active way. Before watching the movie all family members are asked to think what character in the movie they can empathize with the most while watching it and to exchange their opinions after the movie. According to this informal rule, the father should be the first person who is supposed to speak of a certain character in comparison to the character he adopts. The first turn father has taken is a kind of sample to honestly speak out what he has emphasized out of the characters in the movies, like a catalytic role to initiate difficult things. When this movie watching together has been ripe enough for family members to feel free to exchange their opinions and feedback, we can divert this event to the next phase with more formal format. Before watching the movie, every single family member is given a sheet of questionnaire; ¡®What is your impression in general on the movie?¡¯, ¡®What is the primal causes of conflict the person who you have emphasized with in the move and what solutions did he/she had?¡¯, ¡®If you were the director of the movie, what could be the solutions you would like to present in it?¡¯, etc. These are sample questions to ask family members to read and think to answer while watching the movie. Right after watching the movie, all family members will exchange views based on the questions distributed to them before the movie. During the views exchange session, no blame and denial to other members are allowed at all in any circumstances, because this session is for helping family members to realize their roles and problems through looking into the mirror of the movie, not for pointing out the problems other members have nor pressing them to correct in sync with your own preference. Experience watching movies together like these phases can make each family member analyze his/her own problem from a relatively objective point of view. His/her own problems are understood in association with some relationship with other family members, not individual issue separated from other people. In reality, the problems he/she have can easily become amplified due only to the personal perspective, through which he/she tends to abides by understanding it, keeping on digging his/her own heels. However, personal problems will be interpreted into group problems relating all family members, through the change of viewpoints on how to understand them while looking into the mirror of the movie portraying our problems. During the session we can have earnest conversation through the characters substituting our real roles in the mirror, not touching the very sensitive issues nor designating family members directly. This is the major objective of movie watching together with family members. This event is suggested to be done on a regular basis, once or twice a month in order to enhance the quality of conversation. Secondly, the venue for this event would be better in small and exclusive rooms like DVD rental houses, because the sense of intimacy among family members who have spent some time in a small space will increase, which is a by product of this event. Thirdly, selection of movies can be made by any family members, making them feel involved in doing something for family, leading to family culture of total participation. Lastly, when disagreements on how to understand the movies stemming from different interpretations arise, it should be delivered via email or letter in a bid to avoid unnecessary dispute among family members. There is emotional sharing in movie watching together with family. It broadens the topics of conversation, leading to active communication. And furthermore it provides clue of problem solution. Movie is a mirror of our family we look into taking a step back from the complicatedly entangled problems. |