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ome things just don't go as planned. Like when your forty-eight-year-old mother shows up on your doorstep pregnant while you're trying to hide your blossoming lesbian relationship. Such is the dilemma in Saving Face. Set in the tight-knit Chinese community of Flushing Queens, the movie tells the story of twenty-eight-year-old Wilhelmina, a closeted surgeon, who falls in love with Vivian, an out ballet dancer. The other tale, a strong, second narrative rather than a subplot, is that of Wil's mother: after being kicked out of her parents' house, she moves into Wil's apartment and won't name the baby's father.
    Their intertwined self-discovery processes weigh personal decisions against familial obligation. Heavy issues like family strife are balanced by funny situations: Mandarin speaking Ma asks the video store clerk for "China," and he directs her to a section with The Joy Luck Club, The Last Emperor and porn; she rents a porn flick, but abruptly changes the channel when Wil walks in.
    First-time filmmaker Alice Wu, thirty-five, left a promising career at Microsoft and worked hand-to-mouth for five years to fund her vision, which has its roots (but not its plot) in her own experiences. Hooksexup sat down with Wu to discuss her feelings on becoming "the poster child for Asian-American lesbians" and what it's like to direct your first sex scene (which also happens to be the first ever Asian girl-girl sex scene in an American feature film.) — Sarah Harrison Under what circumstances did you write Saving Face?
I got my Master's and my undergraduate degrees in computer science, and so then I went to Microsoft. I think this thing happens to you when you're in the corporate world, or really in any job for a while: at some point, you start to realize that your life is just going to keep on like this. I think a lot of people end up getting married and having kids because suddenly there's nothing to graduate from. One thing about coming out — your parents and Hallmark stop saying, "You need to get married now." Back up: You were at Microsoft?
It's like my big dark secret. I don't bring it up because when I do, people are inevitably like, "I'm having this problem with my Excel spreadsheet." [Laughs] At the end of 1997, they were restructuring and our division had nothing to do, day after day. So to combat boredom, I'd bring my laptop to the office. I think boredom is actually a fantastic motivator. Because I was really bored for those few months, it gave me the space to realize how creatively unchallenged I'd been for a few years. And then you quit.
I moved to New York, and I just gave myself five years. I was like, I'll live on this budget, and in five years if I haven't made my film, then I'll find a job or I'll do something else. I just barely made it. It was kind of crazy: four years of every door shutting in my face, and everyone being like, "This will never get made. It's Chinese, it's lesbian, it's half in Mandarin . . ." But then when it happened, it was great. What was your mom's reaction to the film?
Thank God, it was really good. I was really nervous about it because I came out to myself my senior year of college and shortly after that I came out to her and it didn't go very well. I grew up in a very conservative, Confucian, Chinese household. Up until that point I was this very, very filial Chinese daughter. Had you been dating boys?
I was. And of course your parents' friends all try to set you up. But that was only in high school. Once I got to college I was like, "No more of that!" How has the reaction of the Chinese-American community been?
The funny thing is that the Chinese newspapers have gone berserk over the film, which is great! They spend a lot of time writing about the fact that I'm gay. I'm actually a relatively private person. But if people ask, I think it's important to say that I'm gay, because if I say I'm private, it'll sound like I think there's something wrong with it. A friend of mine recently said, "Wow, Alice, you realize you're now the Chinese-American lesbian poster child!" And then my other friend, who's Korean, was like, "You know, I think it's more than that. I don't know who the Korean-American lesbian poster child is, so I think you're now the Asian-American lesbian poster child!" [Laughs] There aren't many portrayals of Asian lesbians in film.
Yeah, except in porn. [Laughs] Someone said something really interesting to me about the sex scene in my film. It was a straight man who had seen the film, like, three times because he was at festivals and whatnot. And he was like, "I really love that scene. It might feel different to me because it's two Asian-American women in a sex scene directed by another Asian-American woman." So how did you do that scene?
Well, I believe that if you want a really good sex scene you should not focus on the sex at all. You should focus on the intimacy between the people. It's probably like that in real life too, if you think about it. If you're like, "I'm going to have sex with this person and we're totally going to focus on the sex," it will probably be the worse sex you've ever had. [Laughs] When I rehearsed with the actors, I put a lot of thought into the sex scene, but I thought, I'm not going to talk to them about it that way. During rehearsal, I would stage certain scenes like it was their first meeting, or improv the moment of them in a different situation when they were starting to get used to each other. And it was only a third of the way in that I even let them touch each other. We did the scene where one of them has her head on the other one's stomach, and I just watched them. They were very sweet together. Then I took them separately aside and said, "You know we're going to be doing this sex scene?" Each of them talked about how nervous they were. Frankly, I was really happy to hear the word "nervous," because I would be more concerned if they were like, "Oh, it's not going to be a problem." I think that nervousness gives some energy to a scene. The day of the shoot, the three of us sat on the bed, fully clothed, and it was almost like kids playing. Like a sleep-over.
Yeah, we were just talking and getting comfortable, then I just said, "What do you think is sexy about a woman?" and each of them talked a little bit about what they thought, and one of them said "I really like a woman's back." And I said "Great, let's work with that." And we sort of choreographed a little of the scene. They're both straight women, right?
They're both straight, right. And I think that if I said, "We're just going to turn on the camera and go," that it would have paralyzed them. So I was like, "Okay, so we'll do it around the back, and we'll just record for a little bit." Then I told this very embarrassing story about me and the first time I was ever together with a woman. What was it?
[Laughs] I'd have to direct you in a sex scene! I did that because I really wanted them to know how much I appreciated what it would take for them to go through this. I have a tremendous amount of respect for actors, because they're being very vulnerable. And they were amazing. I said to them, "You know, this might be the last time you ever get to make out with a hot Asian woman, so go to town!" And they totally did. It was like, Wow! How did you decide how much nudity to show?
It's funny because I am personally kind of prudish. But if I did a sex scene in which all the covers are perfectly placed — who has sex like that? No one. I'd be saying, I'm a little too ashamed to show this. Which I think is counter to what I'm trying to say in the film. As a director, viscerally, I knew [nudity] is what I wanted. I also knew, like my producer said, it makes this an R movie. What do traditionally Chinese parents tell their children about sex? How do they teach them about it?
I don't know what it was like for other people, but there was no discussion of sex except, Do not have it because you will get pregnant and your life will be ruined. Actually, I grew up under this gigantic fear of pregnancy, which is actually sort of ironic now! [Laughs] I think if I suddenly, accidentally got pregnant now, my mom would celebrate. I'm sure it's different from family to family, but it is something that seems to be very seldom talked about. Since they weren't talking about it, I don't think the idea of sex being pleasurable was ever anticipated. Really?
Yeah, my sense was that sex was just a means for procreation. My parents were immigrants, and it was a very conservative household. I think they didn't worry too much about my having sex because I was such a very private, very homely child. Always reading! I went out on dates, but only because it's what my friends were doing. I always figured I was just not very romantic. How did you learn about sex, then?
I was sort of appalled when I got to college. There was a women's group that met once a week, and in feminist studies, they would just be so open about sexuality. I would be completely scandalized but trying to act like I wasn't. I remember they used to do this thing that would be so painful for me. It was like a check-in: at the beginning, everyone would get together and talk about how their day was going. I would try and show up late to the women's center specifically to avoid check-in. I just remember this time one woman was like, "Oh I didn't feel like going to class, I had sex all day with my boyfriend and it was fantastic." I was just like, Oh my God! You were scandalized because it was so blunt?
I didn't think she was a sinner or was going to go to hell or anything. It was more that the idea of privacy was so ingrained in me. For traditional Chinese parents which would be worse: to be single or to be gay?
To be gay, absolutely. Totally. Are you kidding? I actually said to my mom at one point: "Don't you think your friends suspect about me?" And she was like, "No, they really don't." Because they didn't want to know?
There was a long period where sometimes her friends would try to set me up with their sons, and my mom would say I was very busy. It's kind of funny, actually — because of the film, I actually came out to a couple of our closest friends, and they were really shocked. They had completely bought the story that I was just this very, very busy career woman whose career was just so important to her that she was too busy to date. I was like, "For fifteen years?" Come on. How did they take it?
Some of them think, That's such a pity. She seems like a lovely girl. For some of them, it's opening their minds a little bit. First of all, I'm a very unlikely candidate to be a filmmaker. I'm a geek. You don't look like a geek.
That's very funny, because I am. I remember we were driving home one day in the crew van, and the wardrobe supervisor was asking me all these questions about my life. I was so exhausted that I ended up answering her. She was like, "What were you like in high school?" And I remember telling her — and I still have this image of myself — when I was fourteen I was so painfully shy that I would hug the wall of the school. I know this because sometimes doors would open and I would slam into them. That really was me. That's really shy.
Yeah, I would run to class. So if you told me then that I would ever be directing my own film, I'd think you were crazy. I just turned thirty-five, and obviously a lot has changed. I'm still that person, but in a weird way I think that, as the Chinese-American lesbian poster child, if in fact that's what I am, maybe I'm helping people change their minds a little bit. Because they're imagining some other image for the director of such a movie, like super-hip. And I'm just kind of girl-next-door. Actually, I just thought of something: Forget gay and single, what would be worse for Chinese-American parents, to be gay or not college-educated? That's funny.
I'm positive they would choose single over gay, but that other one I don't know. At least I went to a good college.  n°

  ©2005 Sarah Harrison and hooksexup.com.