#lester lin's acting is so good???

[rose-tinted-vision]

Fic: 雪 | Snow

Relationships: Xue Tongzi & Xue Gongzi

[also on ao3]

spoilers for the ending of My Journey to You (云之羽)

"It's fine if you forget me too, I can't bear for you to hold a grudge against me"

Elder Xue had been furious when he learnt about Xue Tongzi’s decision to stop his Burial Snow Heart Sutra cultivation path, far angrier than anyone had ever seen the placid Elder get. The temperature of the entire estate dropped abruptly, even chilling the ever-burning kilns of the Hua Forge slightly.

It was a selfish decision, but between a stronger cultivation level and two decades worth of memories, the choice had been easy.

“Giving up your cultivation path because of a servant!” Elder Xue exclaimed, “Ridiculous! I forbid it!”

(Xue Gongzi was not just a servant. He was his friend first and foremost. A brother, a caretaker, a guardian. They only had each other in the snowy cavern, after all.)

Xue Tongzi had sighed then, releasing the sutra he constantly cultivated in his core, “I was merely informing you, Elder Xue. not asking for permission."

“Ridiculous” Elder Xue scoffed, face turning a blotchy red, “impudent! How dare you-”

“Elder Xue, according to the sect rules, each individual is allowed to choose their own cultivation path,” Elder Yue said gently.

“The Burial Snow Heart Sutra is-”

“Sacred to the Xue lineage, I am aware,” Xue Tongzi cut in calmly, “It is the path chosen by every guardian of the back hill. I will give up my position and choose a successor to be the next guardian.”

Seeing the determination written on Xue Tongzi’s face, Elder Xue deflated, dragging a tired hand down his face.

“You worked so hard for the guardian position, why give it all up now?"

"My friends are all gone, Elder Xue. It would not do to dishonour their memory by giving it up for more power." Xue Tongzi averted his eyes, unable to bear the stricken expression on Elder Yue’s face.

“But without your Burial Snow Heart Sutra, your fighting prowess will weaken tremendously, and you will start ageing again,” Elder Xue warned, his expression grim but soft with understanding.

Xue Tongzi knows. He can feel his body starting to age already, all those years that he froze catching up to him now. He no longer feels as light, no longer as impervious to the chill in the air.

---

"How could I hold a grudge against you?"

Xue Tongzi could never hold a grudge against Xue Gongzi, not when the other had been forced to give up his freedom to remain in the cavern with him.

He knows how much the other longed to venture out, remembers the contemplative expression that crossed his face whenever when Hua gongzi mentioned sneaking out, knows that the other had been waiting for the day that Gong Ziyu will fulfil his promise, and finally bring Xue Gongzi to explore the outside world.

They did make it out, but not in the way he expected.

Are you lonely? Xue Gongzi had asked once, his eyes sparkling with the innocent curiosity of a child. He had just learnt the word from a book he read, and was experimenting with the ways he could use it in sentences.

No, Xue Tongzi had smiled, ruffling the others hair, As long as you are here, I won't get lonely.

Nowadays, Xue Tongzi feels like a reanimated corpse even on his best days, even with a dedicated, eager successor to train. He draws boundaries, tries not to let him get too close. It would feel too much like he was replacing Xue Gongzi otherwise.

He is not lonely, he tells himself. How could he be, with a young upstart to keep in check most of the time? But sometimes the cedar tree looks terribly accusatory, as if it can look through him and see how empty he feels.

Training his successor in the courtyard is even worse, it feels like Xue Gongzi is watching them train, and the guilt eats at him.

It gets better on certain days, between training and cultivating again. It helps to keep busy, keep his mind off the dead.

Especially since Elder Yue rarely visits, coping with his own grief by similarly throwing himself into researching various poisons with the third Gong heir. He barely sees the hide or hair of his friend nowadays.

Though the loneliness only truly sets in when his successor has turned in for the night, and Xue Tongzi is left on the deck overlooking the snow lotuses that Xue Gongzi lovingly nurtured. Sitting alone, it feels colder than it did back then.

#is it just me or does tumblr compress the gif quality #the gif scene genuinely made me tear up #lester lin's acting is so good??? #xue tongzi #xue gongzi #my journey to you #yun zhi yu #云之羽 #rose writes

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/watch-hamilton-review-lin-manuel-miranda-in-shows-filmed-version-on-disney-deadline/

[WATCH] 'Hamilton' Review: Lin-Manuel Miranda In Show's Filmed Version On Disney+ - Deadline

Considering the worldwide phenomenon that Hamilton has become since its 2015 Broadway debut, it didn’t seem all that crazy to me when Deadline announced that Disney had paid $75 million for theatrical rights to the filmed version of the stage musical and that it would be a major release in theaters next year. However, with the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc everywhere, creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and Disney’s decision to instead release it for the Fourth of July weekend on the new streamer Disney+ not only is likely to set off a stampede to subscribe to the service, it also is truly a gift.

Deadline

In fact, with so much of the country shutting down beaches, outlawing fireworks, and reimposing stay-at-home orders, Hamilton is perhaps the reason to celebrate the holiday this year. When the original purchase deal was made, no one could have known that Broadway, and everywhere else in the world the show is playing, would be shut down for months (now at least into 2021) so this record of the show’s first wave not only keeps this remarkable musical achievement alive, it notches another amazing milestone in the journey for the unlikely hip hop version of the life of Alexander Hamilton.

Miranda and the powers-that-be behind the show, including director Thomas Kail, made the smart decision to create a filmed record of the original cast of the 11-time Tony and Pulitzer Prize winner. Shot on Broadway over a three-day period in late June 2016, Hamilton utilizes six cameras in front of live audiences, as well as some special Steadicam work that was shot between the live performances of 13 of the 40+ musical numbers. This is about as good as it gets in terms of turning the stage experience into a movie experience. Yes, it is still a filmed stage show, but Kail has managed to keep the energy and excitement intact, while making it a much more intimate affair.

I was lucky enough to score orchestra tickets to see it at the Richard Rodgers Theatre just a little more than a month before they filmed it there. While the state of hysteria and anticipation in the audience is not attempted to be re-created here (how could it be?), the show itself is once again a revelation. As they say, this landmark theatrical marvel of non-traditional casting is a “story of America then, told by America now” with an ensemble of Black, brown, Asian and white performers presenting history as viewed from an Obama era that now seems blessedly optimistic, heartening, and hopeful in light of the polarized and divisive environment the country has become. If anything could possibly bring us together, it is this stirring entertainment. A hip-hop musical about Alexander Hamilton? Imagine that.

‘Hamilton’s Christopher Jackson Signs With CAA, Talks Disney+ Debut, Broadway’s Need For Racial Equality – Q&A

Right from the beginning, after introductions preceding it from Miranda and Kail explaining their desire to make this show available on a mass level, you really do realize what an extraordinary work it is. I can’t recall anything, even from the likes of Sondheim or Rodgers and Hammerstein, that has such a continuous string of iconic musical numbers right from the word go: “Alexander Hamilton,” “My Shot,” “The Story Of Tonight,” “The Schuyler Sisters,” “You’ll Be Back,” “Helpless,” and the sublime “Satisfied” sung to perfection by Tony winner Renee Elise Goldsberry. And that’s just the first part of the first act! “The Room Where It Happens,” “One Last Time,” and perhaps the show’s most poignant and beautifully sad song, “It’s Quiet Uptown” are among many still to come. The latter melancholic number that reunites Hamilton and his wife Eliza over an immense personal tragedy is heartbreaking, and so much more personal it seems after seeing it performed up close.

I have seen plenty of filmed versions of stage shows before (James Whitmore even got a Best Actor Oscar nom for his one man show Give ‘Em Hell Harry), but clearly Kail, who so brilliantly directed the Emmy winning Grease Live! for Fox, knows how to use new technology and film techniques to make this production shine in becoming a permanent record of a glorious work. Miranda as Hamilton, Lester Odom Jr. (another Tony winner here) as his arch rival Aaron Burr, a towering Christopher Jackson as George Washington, Phillipa Soo stunning as Eliza Hamilton, and the dazzling abilities of Daveed Diggs, yet another Tony winner as Marquis de Lafayette/Thomas Jefferson, manage to deliver one show stopper after another. And then there’s Jonathan Groff’s hilarious and wickedly pointed King George with every comic expression so clear it is like standing there onstage right next to him. Lines I missed are suddenly brand new in this setting.

Someday I would love to see a film adaptation of this, and no doubt it will come (Miranda’s In The Heights is already in the can for its COVID-delayed release next summer, and his Tick, Tick…Boom has been shot for Netflix as a movie). However there is something about a work of art finding its true place in time, and that ironically is this epic story of a man, an orphaned immigrant, who was not going to “throw away his shot,” who was there at the birth of the United States of America, that needs to be discovered and rediscovered right now by a country in turmoil, in protest, and in action at a crucial moment when we also are not going to throw away our shot. It is indeed a gift.

Hamilton starts streaming on Disney + on Friday. Check out my video review at the link above with scenes from the film.

Do you plan to see Hamilton? Let us know what you think.

#Uncategorized

[focalwriterworks]

THE FAREWELL

My affection for this film, which I saw at the 2019 Atlanta Film Festival, and for what I feel is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen in years, stems from the fact the audience, and the main character’s family in The Farewell, are in on the news that grandma, or NaiNai in Chinese, has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And instead of telling her the sad news the family decide collectively to not tell her. And gather around her, instead, for what could be last visitations, under the guise of cousin HaoHao’s wedding.

The Story: Billi, played by rap artist Awkwafina, hears the bad news from her parents. They are going to China to visit with the family’s matriarch, NaiNai, played with the sweetest humility, and with strong will, by Shuzhen Zhou. Billi is determined to go even though her parents think it’s better if she stays. Billi is saddened by the news, just as all of the family members are, and when they all arrive in China it’s under the pretense of cousin HaoHao’s (Han Chen) marriage to a Japanese girl (Aoi Mizuhara) who doesn’t speak Chinese. To make things a bit more heart-rending, yet also moving in a humorous way, is that NaiNai is determined to coordinate the wedding invitations and banquet for her grandson HaoHao, as she is always beaming with pride, and love, that her grandson is getting married.

The Goods: It’s this pathos and emotional stirring every time NaiNai is on screen demanding the best for HaoHao—the son of NaiNai’s second son—like insisting it is to be lobster on the menu, not crab, at the reception site for the banquet following HaoHao’s wedding ceremony, that makes the film so touching. To see NaiNai so excited, and happy, and thrilled that her family has gathered for the event, that her other son Haiyan (Tzi Ma, who has been in a ton of films and TV since the ‘80’s) has come, with Billi, from America, while knowing she’s dying, and that NaiNai is clueless (or maybe she’s not, it’s understood she is unaware) is such a powerful experience for the viewer that this “user event” in itself, in the theater, makes the film one of the best of the year, regardless of how it all culminates or how it resolves itself.

NaiNai’s joy and grandmotherly instincts with children and grandchildren is so universal. Like well composed songs that find fans everywhere in the world, she oozes a sense of goodness and care, historical perspective and set of rules that all grandmothers seem to have—she will discipline her family members like a mother/grandmother would—with a personal regiment of health tips and what might sound like “old wives’ tales” remedies that come across astoundingly accurate, realistic and true. She even gets Billi up in the mornings to practice her own self-created ‘NaiNai health regime’ that involves stepping around and yelling. Billi handles NaiNai’s routine with a dose of embarrassment, hesitant, but pushed by NaiNai she eventually embraces it if at times losing her composure, in the middle of street outside NaiNai’s high-rise building community, to laugh a bit.

Awkwafina, real name Nora Lum, who told me on the Atlanta Film Festival’s red carpet that though she is of Korean and Chinese decent, grew up in New York, in Queens, speaking only English. She had to brush up on Chinese which family members spoke but she did not. She said she was supported by the crew and cast who all helped her with her lines while filming on location in China. You would never know it. Awkwafina, in a more subdued role compared to her loudish, eccentric character Peik Lin Goh in Crazy Rich Asians (2018), or her cool, collected jewel thief Constance in Ocean’s 8 (2018), or preppy sorority girl Christine in Neighbors 2 (2016), seems like a natural here. Partly too to what Lulu Wang is doing with direction. The film is written and directed by Wang who adapted her own very true story from a short radio episode of This American Life called What You Don’t Know (Episode 585, https://shortcut.thisamericanlife.org/#/clipping/585/110?_k=dc1yj4).

There’s so much of what one senses is realism, like Wang’s radio piece, that the film is like a documentary, at least more so than Lulu Wang’s previous feature film Posthumous (2014). The two feature films are worlds apart and show with striking comparison the tremendous growth and innate talent Ms. Wang has for telling stories with such visual impact while sort of letting characters just be. None of the acting feels forced or rehearsed. And Awkwafina, whose character wants to say something about the deceit, confront the truth, discuss it with her grandmother, but chooses to play along, is a huge part of that. As is Ms. Lang’s real great aunt, Lu Hong, who plays Little NaiNai, the sister of Billi’s grandmother. Wang said that after some takes on set she would ask her great aunt if the scene felt authentic, in which Ms. Hong, knowing the facts of the real NaiNai’s condition, would provide her approval or criticisms thereof.

Ms. Wang’s instinct for camera placement and letting scenes play out while we observe is a comforting feeling. It presents itself as an easy film to involve yourself with. Certainly made in such a way that we too have a place at the table with the family, or in the rooms where scenes take place. Most of the shots are wide, and are master shots. The coverage for editing is simple—it’s not an action film—so capturing the truth in scenes, on location, is easier than forcing it in the editing room. We get to be voyeurs and not feel bad for staring or eavesdropping, but that we also, because we have grandmothers too, feel a part of this family. And since we know that she, the character in the film, and our own grandmothers, are only here for a limited time we should just enjoy our time with them while we can.

The Flaws: Curiously, there is a little bird that appears in Billi’s apartment, after she hears the news of her grandmother, when she returns to her apartment in New York after coming home from being out. Billi asks, “where did you come from, how did you get in here,” then she opens a window and lets the bird out. I get a strong sense the bird is exemplary or symbolic of NaiNai, or of Billi, or simply of life in general, action oriented flapping winged bird landing and wondering what its own situation is, compared to Billi’s, to ours. It’s nice. It’s sort of poetic. But it happens again when Billi gets to China, and it’s the same bird. Identical. As if maybe the bird followed Billi. And Billi doesn’t comment on it. The coincidence doesn’t become an issue with her but I think it is with the audience, because it’s not addressed. I’m distracted by it mostly because there is no explanation or character exposition enlightening us to something potentially special, and maybe supernatural, that has occurred here. And without a sense of a motif being established—like the magpies in the third season of the British TV show The Detectorists (what a random comparison), or any film or creative work where birds are a metaphor for the characters, or experience, in the story—we are sort of left wondering why the bird makes another appearance. Sure we can contemplate it all we want but it doesn’t do anything to help Billi or NaiNai’s situation. Or ours for that matter. Taking that second to process it distracts from this realism Ms. Wang has lovingly presented.

And there are traits of a music video, as a sort of denouement to the film, after HaoHao’s wedding and after the family members sort of part ways back to their corners of the Earth, leaving NaiNai with her sister, and live-in male friend, Mr. Li (who is comic relief in the film). Briefly, the family come back again in what seems like a “flashback” moment; as a collective they all walk down the street with strong steps, sort of like The Monkees, or The Beatles, something from a Richard Lester film, playfully, with vaudevillian moves and serious looks on their faces as they stare out of the screen at the audience, reminiscent of choreographed music videos from the likes of Britany Spears, or Michael Jackson, and virtually every music video in their wake, as if to say, here are the players in this play, these were the performers in this play—in this conspiracy—of family members living with the fact they lied and hid the truth from the family’s matriarch.

It’s a wonderful piece to the film but doesn’t exactly fit. And if there were other moments in the film similar to this then sure it would be more fitting. Or maybe even if it were over credits at the end of the film. Could be there are behind-the-scenes details that maybe production wise something didn’t go as planned, like if Awkwafina who is known for her rap music, if maybe she had a song for the film which Ms. Wang chose to not include. But the sequence itself, the music video moment, it’s a flaw in the sense it removes us from the realism of the film. It’s formalism and it’s noticeable at that. Coming at the end of the film however is the sequence’s saving grace.

Additionally, I did feel a sense NaiNai at times, in Billi’s conscious, is like Father Karras’ mother in The Exorcist (1973). There is a scene where Billi envisions her NaiNai in the subway, in New York, after Billi first hears the news of her grandmother’s diagnosis. I saw the similarity, and later in a Q & A after the film’s screening, Ms. Wang confirmed that she did incorporate traits from the horror genre. Smart, because those closed camera compositions and some of the centered character placements in rooms, combined with subconscious audible room tones, add a complexity to the emotional impact of some of the more serious or dramatic scenes where death is a true, hidden, ghostly antagonist. That NaiNai appears in Billi’s subway is almost too on the nose to William Friedkin’s mother Karras in The Exorcist. If you’ve seen that movie previously you’ll know it, and you’ll feel it, not as homage, not as a rip-off either, but as an accidental, subconscious placement by Ms. Wang that might slightly undermine her own original characters and story.

The Call: Spend the ten. The Farewell is a beautiful film regardless of very minor flaws. The sheer enjoyment of connecting with a family that is certainly yours as well as mine as well as Billi’s is a powerful achievement for Lulu Wang. The concept—a family who chooses not to tell their grandmother she’s going to die of cancer—is strong, script and production wise, even if some of what appears to be scripted may have been authentic cinema verite of Ms. Wang’s real family collaborating with actors. And as a wedding proceeds, what is usually a quirky, fun, family event in films—from the wedding film genre—it does so under false pretenses that are every bit bitter, corrupt and, conversely, the sweetest moments you’ll ever see. A perfect set-up for a lovely character to charm us out of our daily grind and give us back a sense of heart and soul if only for a few hours. And if NaiNai’s in on the news, knowing she might die, well that just shows how much courage she really has. Just like a grandmother, putting her family first before herself.

The Farewell is not yet rated. Running time is 98 minutes. A24 is distributing. In theaters July 12, 2019. Nationwide August 2nd, 2019.

#awkwafina #lulu wang #the farewell #atlanta film festival #atlff #nai nai #gold open #tzi ma #best of 2019 #movies #film #art

[atlff19]

THE FAREWELL

My affection for this film, which I saw at the 2019 Atlanta Film Festival, and for what I feel is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen in years, stems from the fact the audience, and the main character’s family in The Farewell, are in on the news that grandma, or NaiNai in Chinese, has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And instead of telling her the sad news the family decide collectively to not tell her. And gather around her, instead, for what could be last visitations, under the guise of cousin HaoHao’s wedding.

The Story: Billi, played by rap artist Awkwafina, hears the bad news from her parents. They are going to China to visit with the family’s matriarch, NaiNai, played with the sweetest humility, and with strong will, by Shuzhen Zhou. Billi is determined to go even though her parents think it’s better if she stays. Billi is saddened by the news, just as all of the family members are, and when they all arrive in China it’s under the pretense of cousin HaoHao’s (Han Chen) marriage to a Japanese girl (Aoi Mizuhara) who doesn’t speak Chinese. To make things a bit more heart-rending, yet also moving in a humorous way, is that NaiNai is determined to coordinate the wedding invitations and banquet for her grandson HaoHao, as she is always beaming with pride, and love, that her grandson is getting married.

The Goods: It’s this pathos and emotional stirring every time NaiNai is on screen demanding the best for HaoHao—the son of NaiNai’s second son—like insisting it is to be lobster on the menu, not crab, at the reception site for the banquet following HaoHao’s wedding ceremony, that makes the film so touching. To see NaiNai so excited, and happy, and thrilled that her family has gathered for the event, that her other son Haiyan (Tzi Ma, who has been in a ton of films and TV since the ‘80’s) has come, with Billi, from America, while knowing she’s dying, and that NaiNai is clueless (or maybe she’s not, it’s understood she is unaware) is such a powerful experience for the viewer that this “user event” in itself, in the theater, makes the film one of the best of the year, regardless of how it all culminates or how it resolves itself.

NaiNai’s joy and grandmotherly instincts with children and grandchildren is so universal. Like well composed songs that find fans everywhere in the world, she oozes a sense of goodness and care, historical perspective and set of rules that all grandmothers seem to have—she will discipline her family members like a mother/grandmother would—with a personal regiment of health tips and what might sound like “old wives’ tales” remedies that come across astoundingly accurate, realistic and true. She even gets Billi up in the mornings to practice her own self-created ‘NaiNai health regime’ that involves stepping around and yelling. Billi handles NaiNai’s routine with a dose of embarrassment, hesitant, but pushed by NaiNai she eventually embraces it if at times losing her composure, in the middle of street outside NaiNai’s high-rise building community, to laugh a bit.

Awkwafina, real name Nora Lum, who told me on the Atlanta Film Festival’s red carpet that though she is of Korean and Chinese decent, grew up in New York, in Queens, speaking only English. She had to brush up on Chinese which family members spoke but she did not. She said she was supported by the crew and cast who all helped her with her lines while filming on location in China. You would never know it. Awkwafina, in a more subdued role compared to her loudish, eccentric character Peik Lin Goh in Crazy Rich Asians (2018), or her cool, collected jewel thief Constance in Ocean’s 8 (2018), or preppy sorority girl Christine in Neighbors 2 (2016), seems like a natural here. Partly too to what Lulu Wang is doing with direction. The film is written and directed by Wang who adapted her own very true story from a short radio episode of This American Life called What You Don’t Know (Episode 585, https://shortcut.thisamericanlife.org/#/clipping/585/110?_k=dc1yj4).

There’s so much of what one senses is realism, like Wang’s radio piece, that the film is like a documentary, at least more so than Lulu Wang’s previous feature film Posthumous (2014). The two feature films are worlds apart and show with striking comparison the tremendous growth and innate talent Ms. Wang has for telling stories with such visual impact while sort of letting characters just be. None of the acting feels forced or rehearsed. And Awkwafina, whose character wants to say something about the deceit, confront the truth, discuss it with her grandmother, but chooses to play along, is a huge part of that. As is Ms. Lang’s real great aunt, Lu Hong, who plays Little NaiNai, the sister of Billi’s grandmother. Wang said that after some takes on set she would ask her great aunt if the scene felt authentic, in which Ms. Hong, knowing the facts of the real NaiNai’s condition, would provide her approval or criticisms thereof.

Ms. Wang’s instinct for camera placement and letting scenes play out while we observe is a comforting feeling. It presents itself as an easy film to involve yourself with. Certainly made in such a way that we too have a place at the table with the family, or in the rooms where scenes take place. Most of the shots are wide, and are master shots. The coverage for editing is simple—it’s not an action film—so capturing the truth in scenes, on location, is easier than forcing it in the editing room. We get to be voyeurs and not feel bad for staring or eavesdropping, but that we also, because we have grandmothers too, feel a part of this family. And since we know that she, the character in the film, and our own grandmothers, are only here for a limited time we should just enjoy our time with them while we can.

The Flaws: Curiously, there is a little bird that appears in Billi’s apartment, after she hears the news of her grandmother, when she returns to her apartment in New York after coming home from being out. Billi asks, “where did you come from, how did you get in here,” then she opens a window and lets the bird out. I get a strong sense the bird is exemplary or symbolic of NaiNai, or of Billi, or simply of life in general, action oriented flapping winged bird landing and wondering what its own situation is, compared to Billi’s, to ours. It’s nice. It’s sort of poetic. But it happens again when Billi gets to China, and it’s the same bird. Identical. As if maybe the bird followed Billi. And Billi doesn’t comment on it. The coincidence doesn’t become an issue with her but I think it is with the audience, because it’s not addressed. I’m distracted by it mostly because there is no explanation or character exposition enlightening us to something potentially special, and maybe supernatural, that has occurred here. And without a sense of a motif being established—like the magpies in the third season of the British TV show The Detectorists (what a random comparison), or any film or creative work where birds are a metaphor for the characters, or experience, in the story—we are sort of left wondering why the bird makes another appearance. Sure we can contemplate it all we want but it doesn’t do anything to help Billi or NaiNai’s situation. Or ours for that matter. Taking that second to process it distracts from this realism Ms. Wang has lovingly presented.

And there are traits of a music video, as a sort of denouement to the film, after HaoHao’s wedding and after the family members sort of part ways back to their corners of the Earth, leaving NaiNai with her sister, and live-in male friend, Mr. Li (who is comic relief in the film). Briefly, the family come back again in what seems like a “flashback” moment; as a collective they all walk down the street with strong steps, sort of like The Monkees, or The Beatles, something from a Richard Lester film, playfully, with vaudevillian moves and serious looks on their faces as they stare out of the screen at the audience, reminiscent of choreographed music videos from the likes of Britany Spears, or Michael Jackson, and virtually every music video in their wake, as if to say, here are the players in this play, these were the performers in this play—in this conspiracy—of family members living with the fact they lied and hid the truth from the family’s matriarch.

It’s a wonderful piece to the film but doesn’t exactly fit. And if there were other moments in the film similar to this then sure it would be more fitting. Or maybe even if it were over credits at the end of the film. Could be there are behind-the-scenes details that maybe production wise something didn’t go as planned, like if Awkwafina who is known for her rap music, if maybe she had a song for the film which Ms. Wang chose to not include. But the sequence itself, the music video moment, it’s a flaw in the sense it removes us from the realism of the film. It’s formalism and it’s noticeable at that. Coming at the end of the film however is the sequence’s saving grace.

Additionally, I did feel a sense NaiNai at times, in Billi’s conscious, is like Father Karras’ mother in The Exorcist (1973). There is a scene where Billi envisions her NaiNai in the subway, in New York, after Billi first hears the news of her grandmother’s diagnosis. I saw the similarity, and later in a Q & A after the film’s screening, Ms. Wang confirmed that she did incorporate traits from the horror genre. Smart, because those closed camera compositions and some of the centered character placements in rooms, combined with subconscious audible room tones, add a complexity to the emotional impact of some of the more serious or dramatic scenes where death is a true, hidden, ghostly antagonist. That NaiNai appears in Billi’s subway is almost too on the nose to William Friedkin’s mother Karras in The Exorcist. If you’ve seen that movie previously you’ll know it, and you’ll feel it, not as homage, not as a rip-off either, but as an accidental, subconscious placement by Ms. Wang that might slightly undermine her own original characters and story.

The Call: Spend the ten. The Farewell is a beautiful film regardless of very minor flaws. The sheer enjoyment of connecting with a family that is certainly yours as well as mine as well as Billi’s is a powerful achievement for Lulu Wang. The concept—a family who chooses not to tell their grandmother she’s going to die of cancer—is strong, script and production wise, even if some of what appears to be scripted may have been authentic cinema verite of Ms. Wang’s real family collaborating with actors. And as a wedding proceeds, what is usually a quirky, fun, family event in films—from the wedding film genre—it does so under false pretenses that are every bit bitter, corrupt and, conversely, the sweetest moments you’ll ever see. A perfect set-up for a lovely character to charm us out of our daily grind and give us back a sense of heart and soul if only for a few hours. And if NaiNai’s in on the news, knowing she might die, well that just shows how much courage she really has. Just like a grandmother, putting her family first before herself.

The Farewell is not yet rated. Running time is 98 minutes. A24 is distributing. In theaters July 12, 2019.

#awkwafina #Lulu Wang #The Farewell #atlff #atlanta film festival #nainai #tzi ma

[focalwriterwriting]

THE FAREWELL

My affection for this film, which I saw at the 2019 Atlanta Film Festival, and for what I feel is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen in years, stems from the fact the audience, and the main character’s family in The Farewell, are in on the news that grandma, or NaiNai in Chinese, has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. And instead of telling her the sad news the family decide collectively to not tell her. And gather around her, instead, for what could be last visitations, under the guise of cousin HaoHao’s wedding.

The Story: Billi, played by rap artist Awkwafina, hears the bad news from her parents. They are going to China to visit with the family’s matriarch, NaiNai, played with the sweetest humility, and with strong will, by Shuzhen Zhou. Billi is determined to go even though her parents think it’s better if she stays. Billi is saddened by the news, just as all of the family members are, and when they all arrive in China it’s under the pretense of cousin HaoHao’s (Han Chen) marriage to a Japanese girl (Aoi Mizuhara) who doesn’t speak Chinese. To make things a bit more heart-rending, yet also moving in a humorous way, is that NaiNai is determined to coordinate the wedding invitations and banquet for her grandson HaoHao, as she is always beaming with pride, and love, that her grandson is getting married.

The Goods: It’s this pathos and emotional stirring every time NaiNai is on screen demanding the best for HaoHao—the son of NaiNai’s second son—like insisting it is to be lobster on the menu, not crab, at the reception site for the banquet following HaoHao’s wedding ceremony, that makes the film so touching. To see NaiNai so excited, and happy, and thrilled that her family has gathered for the event, that her other son Haiyan (Tzi Ma, who has been in a ton of films and TV since the ‘80’s) has come, with Billi, from America, while knowing she’s dying, and that NaiNai is clueless (or maybe she’s not, it’s understood she is unaware) is such a powerful experience for the viewer that this “user event” in itself, in the theater, makes the film one of the best of the year, regardless of how it all culminates or how it resolves itself.

NaiNai’s joy and grandmotherly instincts with children and grandchildren is so universal. Like well composed songs that find fans everywhere in the world, she oozes a sense of goodness and care, historical perspective and set of rules that all grandmothers seem to have—she will discipline her family members like a mother/grandmother would—with a personal regiment of health tips and what might sound like “old wives’ tales” remedies that come across astoundingly accurate, realistic and true. She even gets Billi up in the mornings to practice her own self-created ‘NaiNai health regime’ that involves stepping around and yelling. Billi handles NaiNai’s routine with a dose of embarrassment, hesitant, but pushed by NaiNai she eventually embraces it if at times losing her composure, in the middle of street outside NaiNai’s high-rise building community, to laugh a bit.

Awkwafina, real name Nora Lum, who told me on the Atlanta Film Festival’s red carpet that though she is of Korean and Chinese decent, grew up in New York, in Queens, speaking only English. She had to brush up on Chinese which family members spoke but she did not. She said she was supported by the crew and cast who all helped her with her lines while filming on location in China. You would never know it. Awkwafina, in a more subdued role compared to her loudish, eccentric character Peik Lin Goh in Crazy Rich Asians (2018), or her cool, collected jewel thief Constance in Ocean’s 8 (2018), or preppy sorority girl Christine in Neighbors 2 (2016), seems like a natural here. Partly too to what Lulu Wang is doing with direction. The film is written and directed by Wang who adapted her own very true story from a short radio episode of This American Life called What You Don’t Know (Episode 585, https://shortcut.thisamericanlife.org/#/clipping/585/110?_k=dc1yj4).

There’s so much of what one senses is realism, like Wang’s radio piece, that the film is like a documentary, at least more so than Lulu Wang’s previous feature film Posthumous (2014). The two feature films are worlds apart and show with striking comparison the tremendous growth and innate talent Ms. Wang has for telling stories with such visual impact while sort of letting characters just be. None of the acting feels forced or rehearsed. And Awkwafina, whose character wants to say something about the deceit, confront the truth, discuss it with her grandmother, but chooses to play along, is a huge part of that. As is Ms. Lang’s real great aunt, Lu Hong, who plays Little NaiNai, the sister of Billi’s grandmother. Wang said that after some takes on set she would ask her great aunt if the scene felt authentic, in which Ms. Hong, knowing the facts of the real NaiNai’s condition, would provide her approval or criticisms thereof.

Ms. Wang’s instinct for camera placement and letting scenes play out while we observe is a comforting feeling. It presents itself as an easy film to involve yourself with. Certainly made in such a way that we too have a place at the table with the family, or in the rooms where scenes take place. Most of the shots are wide, and are master shots. The coverage for editing is simple—it’s not an action film—so capturing the truth in scenes, on location, is easier than forcing it in the editing room. We get to be voyeurs and not feel bad for staring or eavesdropping, but that we also, because we have grandmothers too, feel a part of this family. And since we know that she, the character in the film, and our own grandmothers, are only here for a limited time we should just enjoy our time with them while we can.

The Flaws: Curiously, there is a little bird that appears in Billi’s apartment, after she hears the news of her grandmother, when she returns to her apartment in New York after coming home from being out. Billi asks, “where did you come from, how did you get in here,” then she opens a window and lets the bird out. I get a strong sense the bird is exemplary or symbolic of NaiNai, or of Billi, or simply of life in general, action oriented flapping winged bird landing and wondering what its own situation is, compared to Billi’s, to ours. It’s nice. It’s sort of poetic. But it happens again when Billi gets to China, and it’s the same bird. Identical. As if maybe the bird followed Billi. And Billi doesn’t comment on it. The coincidence doesn’t become an issue with her but I think it is with the audience, because it’s not addressed. I’m distracted by it mostly because there is no explanation or character exposition enlightening us to something potentially special, and maybe supernatural, that has occurred here. And without a sense of a motif being established—like the magpies in the third season of the British TV show The Detectorists (what a random comparison), or any film or creative work where birds are a metaphor for the characters, or experience, in the story—we are sort of left wondering why the bird makes another appearance. Sure we can contemplate it all we want but it doesn’t do anything to help Billi or NaiNai’s situation. Or ours for that matter. Taking that second to process it distracts from this realism Ms. Wang has lovingly presented.

And there are traits of a music video, as a sort of denouement to the film, after HaoHao’s wedding and after the family members sort of part ways back to their corners of the Earth, leaving NaiNai with her sister, and live-in male friend, Mr. Li (who is comic relief in the film). Briefly, the family come back again in what seems like a “flashback” moment; as a collective they all walk down the street with strong steps, sort of like The Monkees, or The Beatles, something from a Richard Lester film, playfully, with vaudevillian moves and serious looks on their faces as they stare out of the screen at the audience, reminiscent of choreographed music videos from the likes of Britany Spears, or Michael Jackson, and virtually every music video in their wake, as if to say, here are the players in this play, these were the performers in this play—in this conspiracy—of family members living with the fact they lied and hid the truth from the family’s matriarch.

It’s a wonderful piece to the film but doesn’t exactly fit. And if there were other moments in the film similar to this then sure it would be more fitting. Or maybe even if it were over credits at the end of the film. Could be there are behind-the-scenes details that maybe production wise something didn’t go as planned, like if Awkwafina who is known for her rap music, if maybe she had a song for the film which Ms. Wang chose to not include. But the sequence itself, the music video moment, it’s a flaw in the sense it removes us from the realism of the film. It’s formalism and it’s noticeable at that. Coming at the end of the film however is the sequence’s saving grace.

Additionally, I did feel a sense NaiNai at times, in Billi’s conscious, is like Father Karras’ mother in The Exorcist (1973). There is a scene where Billi envisions her NaiNai in the subway, in New York, after Billi first hears the news of her grandmother’s diagnosis. I saw the similarity, and later in a Q & A after the film’s screening, Ms. Wang confirmed that she did incorporate traits from the horror genre. Smart, because those closed camera compositions and some of the centered character placements in rooms, combined with subconscious audible room tones, add a complexity to the emotional impact of some of the more serious or dramatic scenes where death is a true, hidden, ghostly antagonist. That NaiNai appears in Billi’s subway is almost too on the nose to William Friedkin’s mother Karras in The Exorcist. If you’ve seen that movie previously you’ll know it, and you’ll feel it, not as homage, not as a rip-off either, but as an accidental, subconscious placement by Ms. Wang that might slightly undermine her own original characters and story.

The Call: Spend the ten. The Farewell is a beautiful film regardless of very minor flaws. The sheer enjoyment of connecting with a family that is certainly yours as well as mine as well as Billi’s is a powerful achievement for Lulu Wang. The concept—a family who chooses not to tell their grandmother she’s going to die of cancer—is strong, script and production wise, even if some of what appears to be scripted may have been authentic cinema verite of Ms. Wang’s real family collaborating with actors. And as a wedding proceeds, what is usually a quirky, fun, family event in films—from the wedding film genre—it does so under false pretenses that are every bit bitter, corrupt and, conversely, the sweetest moments you’ll ever see. A perfect set-up for a lovely character to charm us out of our daily grind and give us back a sense of heart and soul if only for a few hours. And if NaiNai’s in on the news, knowing she might die, well that just shows how much courage she really has. Just like a grandmother, putting her family first before herself.

The Farewell is not yet rated. Running time is 98 minutes. A24 is distributing. In theaters July 12, 2019.