Lulu Wang’s bittersweet familial drama “The Farewell” is based on an actual lie. And this much is not a spoiler, but the very premise of the filmmaker’s sophomore feature, which follows a Chinese-American family (many of them immigrants in America and Japan) as they come together around a shared secret. Their mission is to withhold her recent cancer diagnosis from their matriarch “Nai Nai” (Zhao Shuzhen) and to reunite in her hometown Changchun through the excuse of a rushed family wedding, in order to say their final goodbyes. At the center of this stranger-than-fiction true tale is the young New Yorker Billi (Awkwafina), an emotional, out-of-work writer based on Wang herself.
“It was challenging,” Wang tells us with regards to how she got her family on board for her movie, which took the Sundance Film Festival by emotional storm back in January. “I didn’t face any resistance. I wanted to be respectful, but I didn’t really ask for permission.”
The clan had to get power of attorney and everyone had to sign off. “Because of this idea that the family unit is the most important thing, I don’t think that anybody would have come out to challenge my decision to make a film,” she explains.
In the end, the experience was a personal journey for Wang, one that helped her understand her family better through a complex decision to keep crucial information away from an adult, the ethical and practical workings of which she delicately grapples with in “The Farewell.” “I don’t think that one set of values is right and one set of values is wrong,” she reflects. “What I learned was, this journey ultimately is not for me to find an answer. In fact, it’s very humbling to understand that there is not one [right] answer. It’s more about compassion and understanding of other perspectives.”
READ MORE: Awkwafina Has ‘Practical Pessimism’ About That Awards Buzz For ‘The Farewell’ [Interview]
Below is our interview with the filmmaker on the themes and the making of “The Farewell” as well as Wang’s views on the future of diversity in American film.
“The Farewell” is very specific in terms of this one family and culture, but its themes are universal for a lot of immigrants. Was that angle always top of mind for you, or was it a byproduct of the story you were telling?
Both. I thought about it, but it’s also a byproduct. I can’t tell a story about my grandmother without telling the story of immigration, because it’s the entire context through which our relationship now exists, the fact that all of these years we haven’t been home, and that my father and my uncle haven’t been around. It was impossible for me to make this film, to grapple with losing her, without grappling with the sense that we lost so much time together.
You capture an immigrant’s in-between state of mind so beautifully and accurately. I saw a little bit of myself in Billi. You always try to figure out where you belong.
Yeah, definitely. I wanted to capture that in-betweenness and also the sadness when you go back home. You don’t connect in so many ways anymore. You want to go back and you want to feel like, “Okay, now I belong 100% here. This is where home is.” But it’s not, you know? Both from a cultural standpoint of food and language, and also in a deeper sense, of a value system, [your] way of thinking, your point of view on life, in general, is changed when you adopt western values.
Your filmmaking choices speak to that too. I loved how you placed characters in the middle of the screen at times, with so much negative space. You see them together, but you also sense their isolation. Your visual language reflects those themes.
I’m so glad. Anna Franquesa Solano is my DP. We worked really closely together to pick lenses and the type of camera, the type of frame, and it was always through this perspective of storytelling. It was never just about what would look cool. We thought about the story and themes. One of the major decisions we made was shooting on a wider aspect ratio. That was a hard decision—family dramas tend to be filmed on a taller aspect ratio that’s narrower, so that you see more of the ceiling and the floor. But with a wide aspect ratio, which is traditionally used for outdoor landscapes, what we wanted to portray the landscape of a family the same way you see mountains and rivers. This family has a personality of its own as a unit. It’s a character as a whole unit, and when we can fill the whole frame with all of these faces. And then when you take them away, you really feel what’s missing, right? You have this very empty frame. I think that especially when Billi’s in it alone, you feel her isolation.
And I felt lighting was a part of that too. In New York scenes, there are more shadows. But in China, it’s significantly brighter. That contrast was almost ironic: everything is so bright but there is a secret being harbored underneath it all.
Light is a very interesting lens through which to look at cultures. For example, in western culture, we romanticize chiaroscuro, the pools of warm, tungsten light. It comes from renaissance paintings and really from religion; from Catholic Christianity roots, like candlelight and all of that. There’s something sort of sacred and beautiful [to it]. But in China, there’s no Christian religious background. There’s no Catholicism. And for many, many generations that have been poor [with no] electricity, there’s nothing romantic about not having light. Now that people can afford it and people who have means have electricity, to them, it’s like, “fill it with light.” It’s very practical. Light allows us to see in a literal way. You can see the room better when you’re cooking and eating. And why wouldn’t you want to see? Why would you self-deny the ability to see? So when my Chinese relatives come and visit The States, they are always like, “Why is it so dark in here? Why don’t you turn the lights on? I don’t understand. I can’t see anything.” And so in China, that’s the popular way of lighting. They have a big overhead light that’s fluorescent so that it flattens the room and just fills it with light.
Even in homes?
In every single corner. Because light feels less depressing and you can see better. But for somebody who’s not used to that, it’s very uncomfortable at dinner, at night. Everybody’s faces are kind of green and washed out. It’s not great for photography. If I take a photo of the family, everybody’s washed out in this fluorescent light, and for me, it adds to this horror/thriller-esque element, that discomfort of the lighting. So I’m keeping this secret and I’m very uncomfortable in this room. But for them, they’re just in their element. Everything is normal.
