February 25, 1983. Lulu Wang's breakout hit of 2019, The Farewell, garnered critical and commercial success in its effective interweaving of both the personal Asian-American experiences and universal themes of loss and disconnection, all tied up in a charming, heartbreaking autobiographical tale. Wang talks of losing "a sense of belonging, a sense of wholeness" upon her first seminal school days in America as a child. In a sense, The Farewell serves as her creative peak in a lifelong journey "to rediscover that feeling, [and try] to find that wholeness again."
On this episode, your filmy chartographers swim with the Pisces fish and synchronize their charts with Wang's Posthumous (2014) and The Farewell respectively. Both films share characters navigating unfamiliar territory, emotionally and spiritually, as they are pulled between two worlds, stuck in a personal limbo, a cultural and existential purgatory.
Did Michelle and Jeremy record three separate takes? How many words do they mispronounce? What's Buttman's Kiosk?
Align your compasses and find out!
Artwork by Sara Helm.
Music by Jacob Anstey.
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