Lulu Wang
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At Home With His Memories
In The Poetics of Space, the French philosopher Gaston Bachelard writes about a simple psychological test used on children, “the house test.” He quotes the critic Anne Balif: “Asking a child to draw his house is asking him to reveal the deepest dream shelter he has found for his happiness. If he is happy, he will succeed in drawing a snug, protected house, which is well built on deeply-rooted foundations.” If he is sad, however, writes Bachelard, “The house bears traces of his distress.” For Bachelard, the home, and particularly the childhood home, is a place where “a great many […]
by Filmmaker Staff on Dec 15, 2023 -
The Kindest Denial
“Life is not just about what you do but how you do it,” says Nai Nai (Shuzhen Zhou) to Billi (Awkwafina), her New York–based struggling writer granddaughter, toward the end of writer/director Lulu Wang’s triumphant sophomore feature, The Farewell. It’s the type of aphoristic advice passed on by an elder that, on its face, may not seem like much. But given where it’s placed in Wang’s film, after all that has come before and what Billi is certain will come after, it lands with disarming, laconic gravity. And as much as it subtly refers to the film’s central storyline—Billi travels […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 19, 2019 -
Where are the Girl-Wonders? Everywhere—But Who Noticed?
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“To Revisit Such a Traumatic Experience for the Sake of Our Movie”: Director Lulu Wang | The Farewell
