DIRECTOR LULU WANG ON THE MAKING OF THE FAREWELL
DIRECTOR LULU WANG ON MAKING THE PERSONAL PUBLIC IN HER SOPHOMORE FILM THE FAREWELL.
THE COST OF A LIE – and the toll it takes – is one filmmaker Lulu Wang knows all too well.
Wang wrote and directed her second movie, The Farewell, based on her family’s decision to keep her grandmother unaware of a terminal cancer diagnosis. The film unfolds through the eyes of Billi (Awkwafina), an Asian-American living in New York whose life is loosely based on Wang’s own. The family visits China to celebrate Billi’s cousin’s wedding, fabricating circumstances so they can bid grandma goodbye.
Wang’s family aren’t simply the inspiration for the film; Little Nai Nai (Wang’s grand-aunt) was cast to play herself, too. ‘She was there to represent her side of the story – as the person who instigated that lie’, says Wang. ‘The best way to make sure I was being respectful to her story was to actually have her around.’
Casting Awkwafina, the rapper and actor best known for her role in Crazy Rich Asians, as her star ‘was definitely an unexpected choice’, Wang admits. But it was clearly the right one, with the actor earning a Golden Globe for her performance.
‘I kept having to tell [Awkwafina], ‘Sit up straight!’ but she had this hunched-over posture’, says Wang. ‘Ultimately it worked for the character, because
you feel the weight of the lie and this burden on her shoulders in a physical way.’
While Billi is based on Wang and her lived experiences, the director is adamant that The Farewell is neither biopic nor memoir. ‘[Billi] is a character that represents so many of us who are Asian-American and find ourselves in between two different cultures’, she explains.
These cultures inevitably clash, with poignant confrontations taking place around the dinner table. Cinematographer Anna Franquesa Solano set the camera on a lazy Susan, capturing each person’s reactions from the same perspective, despite their contrasting views.
Food forms the basis of many family scenes. Here, art imitates life. ‘That’s the reality of my experience. I don’t know what else we would do if we weren’t eating or preparing to eat’, explains Wang. ‘That’s just the language of love the family is familiar with’.
BILLI REPRESENTS SO MANY OF US WHO ARE ASIAN-AMERICAN AND FIND OURSELVES BETWEEN TWO DIFFERENT CULTURES LULU WANG
The Farewell has received international acclaim,
despite its often culturally specific subject matter.
Wang, adamant that the movie stay authentic to the narrative, waited until the right opportunity to make
the film presented itself. As a result The Farewell
highlights the voices of a diaspora beyond the more mainstream, conventional comedies they are often relegated to.
‘I do think that the industry is moving more towards
the direction of having specific stories from unique
perspectives that haven’t been heard before’, she says. ‘The audience is demanding it – there’s this hunger for stories that represent more of their reality’.