The Lunch Date

"The Lunch Date" is a short film. An elderly woman walking fast at a terminal bumps into a black man, her belongings scattered on the floor. He tries to pick them up, but she refuses. When she reaches the platform, the train she was supposed to take has just left. When she turns back, she also notices that her handbag is missing. She kills time in a cafeteria and sits down to eat a salad. She notices that she has no cutlery, so she takes a fork from the counter. When she returns to her seat, she sees a black man eating the salad. I thought the film was satirising society at the time. This film implies the stereotype that people have.

I absolutely love this film. It really points out stereotypes that we all hold. I spent considerable time trying to locate a copy of this outstanding film. I finally found it on a DVD collection entitled Cinema 16: American Short Films. It has been well worth the search and the cost. I use it in my classroom to prompt discussions about stereotypes. I have my students watch it first from the point of view of the main character, the woman who has missed her train. I have them record their thoughts and perceptions from her point of view. I stop the film as she leaves the diner to catch her train. This is when I have my students share their thoughts. I then have them finish watching the story. Are they ever surprised! After this, I have them watch it from the perspective of the man eating the salad. After sharing their thoughts from his point of view, we discuss stereotypes. My students really enjoy this outstanding short story. The message contained in this short film is incredible.

The Lunch Date is an interesting movie. A wealthy woman is looking for her train, but she misses it because she encounters trouble at the terminal. She eventually goes to the cafeteria to eat something. She orders salad and sits on a seat. She notices there are no forks, so she goes to get one. After returning to the seat, she finds a strange man eating her salad. She is angry with him, but he doesn't care. Eventually, she shares the salad with him. He buys her a cup of coffee, but she looks unhappy. After that, she goes out of the cafeteria and notices she forgets her bags. Returning to the cafeteria, she realizes a significant thing... This short film expresses a sense of discomfort, but it is also funny. This woman is arrogant and wealthy. She doesn't apologize anytime and is highly vigilant about everyone. She should receive her comeuppance, but she doesn't. It seemed unfair. On the other hand, there is a twist in this film, so I like it.

An old white lady, who has a lot of bags, harries to take a train in a station. But she bumps into a man, and she drops her bags to miss the train. Then she have lunch there. She buys her lunch and sits a seat. She realizes that there are no fork and stands up to take it. When she returns the seat, there is a black man. He has lunch, and she claims this is her lunch. But he continues to eat, and she also has it. The man buys two cups of tea. She drinks it a little and leaves there to take a train. Later she comes back there to forget a part of her bags.

After watching this short film, we realize that we have prejudices about a race. We tend to think color people are inferior to white people or low social ladder. Also the lady looks unhappy in this film, because she is driven by time. But she laughs in the end of this film. This is useful to stress the climax of it.

This film is a story about a woman who misses a train and has lunch to kill some time. I think the interesting point of this film is that although there is no clear explanation, we can assume the characteristics of the woman by only watching the first 30 seconds of the film. There are two points which shows the characteristics of the woman in this film. Firstly, the woman dresses up shiwily, carrying many shopping bags in her hands. We can easily assume that the woman is rich. Secondly, when the woman cannons into a man and he tries to gather the strewn items of the purse, she coldly denies his help and leaves him quickly. She does not believe people easily. She may be a very suspicious person. Since this film is only ten minutes long, there is not enough time to explain the character's characteristics in detail. This film succeeds in depicting the least information about the main character possible to describe in such limited time.