Farewell

In my opinion, movies always reflect life. I always like making films based on personal experience but not setting up the world as same as real life.
For me, the first idea of this film is just like the name of this one: farewell. It’s always hard to say goodbye to someone you love, but life forces us to, there’s nothing that can be forever. Recently I lost my best friend, he used to be the one I share everything with. But now we just stop talking to each other. I try to keep my life looks like normal but I know it’s not anymore. It’s like every happy moment will make me suffer, because before I will share it with him but now it becomes a moment that reminds me I lost my best friend. He was my soulmate, and he’s the one I want to keep for my whole life. After he’s gone my feeling is like losing half of my soul and my support. But it is what it is. I have to accept it, I have to keep going even without him.
Then it makes me think about friendship. As a foreigner here, I met a lot of people here and some of them become my best friends here, such a beautiful thing. In my first year here, I was the only Chinese there, with my broken English. But I was so lucky that everyone who shows up in my life is nice and kind, even though we don’t speak the same language, we understand each other. I assume that friends are someone who can talk to your heart directly but just talk through language. And that’s the reason I set up Claire as a robot, and her best friend is Jeffrey, a human being. They are different species, but they understand each other, and that makes them become friends.
Talk about Quintin, he’s a part of me. There’s a sentence in a Chinese poem I really feel a lot and it says, “Any kind of environment or a person, you can feel the pain in leaving when you first meet him, you’ve just fallen in love with him.” It reminded me, one day and two of my best friends here were on a hill and watching the sunset. That was a wonderful time and beautiful sky, and I was crying. I know this won’t be forever, the more beautiful it is, the more pain I felt after this. Quintin is a part of me who always want to step away from suffering by avoiding and escaping. However, no pain no gain, great things are always hard. What makes life beautiful is actually the moment that has no chance to be repeated. Compared with avoiding it, why don’t you just cherish it as much as you can?
However, while I was writing the script, I also learned from my characters. Then I realized that besides farewell, there’s a universal theme here: what is love? Because the pain from farewell is actually based on love. And in my opinion, love is respect.
Quintin symbolizes people who always pretend to themselves, and avoid loving or being loved just in case they don’t get hurt. Jeffrey symbolizes people who want to hold everything in their life. Claire and Lynne, are the gift for life, like someone you meet by chance, or someplace you never expect.