Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds' emotional reaction to seeing their HBO film Bright Lights

Within the first few minutes of Bright Lights, the new documentary about Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher,  the dynamic mother-daughter are joking about death.

No one could have foreseen then that both mother and daughter would not be around to see the movie's release.  Fisher, 60, died a day before her mother last month. The film, documenting their bond, was moved up three months and premieres this weekend on HBO.

Bright Lights directors (and partners) Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens spent roughly a year following the two stars collecting footage and, in the process, became friends with their subjects.

q spoke to Alexis Bloom about working with Fisher and Reynolds, what they thought of the film and what Fisher's last act of generosity was.

Right in the opening of the documentary, Fisher cracks a joke about what she was entitled to in her mother's will. In fact, there are a few lines throughout the film about death. That must feel strange in retrospect.

Some of the lines immediately rose to my mind. She was shopping in London and there was a plate that said, "Prepare to meet thy God," and she goes, "Oh no, when?" There were a lot of lines that, at the time, were just funny that are now heartbreaking. They're still funny, though, because it's Carrie and she delivers them with such verve that they've taken on a different dimension.

You got to spend a lot of time with them, can you describe what their relationship was like in real life?

Their relationship was incredibly tender. Even when they were exasperated with each other or frustrated with each other, it was born out of love. You don't get exasperated with people you don't love, you just walk away. They had a relationship that was profoundly complex but it was one, above all, of love. But they weren't afraid to have all the other messy emotions that accompany love. They had a period of time when they weren't speaking a lot, but they were bonded in a way that's sort of hard to put into words — it's a mother-daughter thing.

Were either of them ever uncomfortable with the idea of having cameras follow them around, documenting everything they did?

They were both frequently uncomfortable. Debbie's not from a world where vérité was very common. She's from a scripted world so she wanted formality to the structure. So, she'd be like, what do I need to say, when do I need to say it, what notes do you need to hit? And when we explained to her that we just wanted to be a fly on the wall, that was somewhat flummoxing to her. It just wasn't her genre, but she was very supportive of us in many ways.

Carrie, on the surface of it, seems very comfortable. She really wanted us to be there sometimes, but she turned us away other times. She often had other things to do and we weren't on the top of her list of priorities. I don't think she ever had a documentary made about her before. She has created her life stories many times but they've always been sort of under her control. She wrote her books and even though it's no holds barred, she chose what to say. She let go of the authorship of this one and that was new for her.

Did they get to see the film? If so, what did they think?

They both got to see it and they were both very supportive. We were lucky in that. There were parts of it that Carrie found incredibly difficult. The scene with her father, she always found that very, very difficult. It sort of broke her heart to see him like that, and to see their interaction. She cried when she saw that in New York, and she said, "I just miss him so much."

What will be your lasting memories of both Fisher and Reynolds?

Something that'll stay with me about Debbie is when she watched the film. I watched it with her in Las Vegas and she was pretty ill. She sat through it and she had an expression when she was watching the home movies, of just the light on her face. I can see her revelling in the memories of the past and of Carrie and Todd being young. I was sitting behind her, at an angle, and I could see her profile and how delighted she was. So that's how I'm going to choose to remember her.

And Carrie. … there's just so much with Carrie. Carrie sent my daughter, recently, the most extravagant of little dresses. … Carrie was the most generous person you've ever met in your whole life. She'd go shopping for you and buy stuff that you would never buy yourself. Silly stuff as well, like little holograms that fit in your pockets or hair clips, it didn't have to be expensive, just something she thought you'd like. She bought my daughter a box of dresses from Barneys and she bought her a gold, knitted crown — wonderful, crazy stuff that just made me laugh. That's the last big thing she did for me.

Bright Lights premieres on HBO Canada Jan. 7 at 8:00 p.m.

By Melody Lau