Ryan McNeil
Runtime
94 minutes
Show Contents:
0:00 Introduction
3:02 Know Your Enemy: Courtney Small
24:41 The New Slang: THE FAREWELL
58:50 The Other Side: Courtney and Ryan talk further reading after Lulu Wang’s new film
Thoughts From Your Host…
This is the sort of film I most want to podcast about.
It’s a movie that doesn’t have a whole lot of exposure just yet. Specifically, it’s playing on just 135 venues in North America – by comparison, the newest Tarantino film is playing in more than 3500.
It’s a movie that speaks directly to a specific culture, and yet has so damned many universal themes.
And it’s a movie that gave my guest and I so very much to think about, and left us feeling so much joy and heartache in equal measures.
THE FAREWELL has been prompting people like Simu Liu to buy out cinemas and offer people a chance to see it for free just to get the box office up…and I absolutely understand why. It’s a film that won’t get a whole lot of advertising on your TV or in the sidebar of the websites you browse. And yet, I wager that if you gave it a go, you’d come away from it feeling truly affected in all of the ways good cinema affects us most.
I’m always thankful that anyone tunes into this show at all, given how many other movie podcasts are out there talking about much bigger films. Today, I’m extra grateful, considering how much I want to spread the word on this particular film.
Links Mentioned on Episode 228:
Reel Insight S02E60 where Rachel and Jess bemoan the length of the wedding scene in THE DEER HUNTER
Courtney’s Twitter feed can be found here. Comments and feedback are welcome, and thank-you very much for listening.
Enjoy!
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great episode on a great movie (and hey Courtney, miss ya, let’s go get lunch sometime soon)
The one thing you didnt cover in the Farewell that was big with me is something I think is very much in the movie, but might be more triggered by personal experience.
My dad was diagonosed with a blood cancer a year ago. He’s actually doing good. My mother died of cancer around 4 years ago. Dad and I recently went on a trip to New Brunswick to his cottage and to see relatives, and I had not been back in a long long time. Because mom is gone and because you never know with dad, I went out of my way to take a tour with him to all our old neighborhoods, homes, places of note (where he got married, where he went to school, where we used to often to to eat, etc. We “broke” into churches and colleges). The intention was getting to know his story better, but it was also kind of sad for both of us because it was a farewell. Him maybe because he probably wont do those trips again and theres a flood of memories, but for me because I also probably won’t go back… and once a few more relatives die, I probably won’t go back to New Brunswick at all.
So the scenes where Billie is noting her old neighborhood and that the house isn’t there anymore, the scenes where the family is discussing whether they are Chinese or American first, and the wave goodbye of course – it was for me laden with Billie coming to terms with her identity, not saying goodbye to being Chinese per se, but being on the verge of being even more disconnected and alien to that culture, possibly never returning, because the things she is going back for and holds dear won’t be there anymore.
Great flick.