Lulu Wang’s grandmother will finally get to see The Farewell when it opens in China January 10.
The director’s Nai Nai has never been told she’s living with a terminal diagnosis, the premise of the Golden Globe nominated film for best foreign picture.
The Farewell will debut in China January 10 and according to The Hollywood Reporter, Nai Nai will presumably learn the family’s secret when she sees the film.
“Like the lie in real life, it is not my responsibility to tell her or to hide it,” says Wang. “I just have to follow the family,” she said to the publication.
Every decision made for the low budget picture has been very deliberate. Wang had just 24 days to shoot in China and two days in New York. Many times there were 13 people in the same scene.
“To cover 13 people in the wide and the medium and the close-up, that would take a lot of time,” she said to Indie Wire.
The decision was made not to shoot with a narrower taller frame, the format of choice of many family drama films.
“We came across this idea of shooting the family as you’d shoot a landscape because that’s really what it was, a landscape of a family,” said Wang. “[The way] to portray the family as a unit and still be close to their faces was to go wider.
“You don’t really want to cut because you want to see the fumble, you want to see the natural shifts from laughing to losing that smile and being caught in their performance,” she said to IW.
The idea worked. The Farewell is up for two Golden Globes tonight. The other is for Awkwafina in the category of best actress in a musical or comedy.
AsAmNews has Asian America in its heart. We’re an all-volunteer effort of dedicated staff and interns. Check out our new Instagram account. Go to our Twitter feed and Facebook page for more content. Please consider interning, joining our staff or submitting a story.
