Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed series tonight, Tuesday, September 9: THE LULU SESSIONS
S Casper Wong’s personal record of her ex-lover’s struggle with breast cancer debuted at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival in 2011. It played a number of LGBT fests, including Boston, Inside Out, Austin, Seattle, Mix Copenhagen, Q Doc, and Vancouver, and Asian fests in NYC, Washington DC, and San Diego, among others.
Wong agrees to start filming LuLu from the moment that her friend calls to find out the results of a lump biopsy. Following her intermittently from treatment through death, Wong constructs a sometimes intriguing, non-chronological portrait of the foul-mouthed LuLu – ironically, we eventually find out, a cancer researcher – and of their complicated connection. Supporting her when LuLu’s apparently insane sisters reject her, theirs is a complex, enmeshed relationship that has taken on several permutations – mentor, lover, and friend – though neither is this as surprising to the viewer as it seems Wong thinks it will be, nor does it always translate into the most gripping footage. Add Wong’s excessive narration, and it makes for an uneven project, and one largely buoyed by the appealing LuLu.
what (not) to doc 