The theme of mastery plays a great role in Aaron Au’s The Tea Master. The focus of the film was not on the mastery of swordplay or the mastery of the tea ceremony as much as it was on the parallels between the two. The concept of mastery in general was in fact the basis of the short.
The cinematic choices reflect this focus. Consider the samurai’s opening battle scene. Instead of placing the emphasis on the action and results of his fighting, like most movies, the film focuses on the art of his form. Rather than display the gruesome destruction of hand-to-hand combat, Au abstracts the violence and makes it thoroughly aesthetic. Importantly, he uses an austere black and white to depict the fight scene. The clean lines of the black garbed “ninjas” evoke the artistry of calligraphy, and the sparing use of the color red – for blood- cuts across the screen in a striking manner. The result is that the fight is a display of choreography, of absolutely assured mastery, rather than what it really is – a fight. The use of black and white also serves to distance the audience form the reality of violence, making the swordplay even more aesthetically abstract. In addition, the director’s choice to have the assailants masked creates an emotional separation between them and the audience. Since we see them as identical, masked attackers, we do not recognize them as people that may suffer at the hands of the samurai. All that remains is the beautiful manner in which the samurai controls his blade.
Of course, the tea master himself is central to the film. The only scene in which he actually goes about making tea centers on his mastery – just in a different way than the samurai. Effective use of slow motion is central to the scene. The extended focus on the pouring and measuring, the lingering sound of droplets of tea falling into the cup – all of this mirrors the calm way in which the tea master prepares his brew. His assured mastery and his utterly relaxed state of mind are reflected in the pacing of the shots. The atmosphere of the scene fills in his emotion and his relief when he is finally granted the opportunity to perform something he knows inside and out.
The fact that the short ends with a scene interlacing the tea master’s tea ceremony and the actions of him pulling out his sword proves that the focus of the film was on mastery itself. The way for the tea master to prevail in his challenge was not to adopt skills that he was unfit for, but rather to use his lifelong position to prove his worth.
Watch Here: The Tea Master
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