Yi Yi (2000) Movie Review

The rules of genre identification used to be simple: comedies ended in weddings, and tragedies ended in death. “Yi Yi” begins with a wedding and ends with a funeral, a cinematic blend of comedy and tragedy, one in which is presented without much music or stylistic embroidery the stillness and pace of true life that only intensifies with the intensity of character. There is a palpable pulse racing through the film.

This is not, say, “Little Miss Sunshine”, which was eccentric and comedic to its core, but neither is it a melodrama. It’s about life’s daily inflections, which makes for a film that feels painfully, logistically real.  As the character of Fatty says, we live three times as long when we watch movies, and so we share the experiences of three different generations in “Yi Yi”. The entire film can perhaps be summed up in his quote: “Life is a mixture of sad and happy things. Movies are so life-like. That’s why we love them.” If we didn’t love the movies, then surely our minds would be far less expansive for it.

Taiwanese director Edward Yang’s film is lovingly crafted. He has created a still portrait of family life, and as such his style copes well with the subject material. Just about everything is shot from a fixed position so that each scene is matted with tension and observational power. There is very little movement. The camera is only at its most hyperbolic when it pans slowly, and a cut usually denotes a scene change. It’s almost like the entire film is made up of a series of vignettes or still paintings. There are also very few close-ups employed. While such a tactic may inexorably distance the audience, what hangs in the space between the camera and the character is the weight of private thoughts and feelings that we are only privy to from far away.

In one particular scene the camera is placed in the dark corner of a hotel room. From the corner we can see the middle-aged NJ, played by Nien-Nu Wu, as he attempts to reconcile with his first love, Sherry, so that he may find out whether there are such things as second chances from the grinding milieu of daily life. This follows a quirky cast of characters who cycle in and out of the picture at various points in time.

For instance, there is NJ’s son, Yang-Yang, who asks big, important questions but isn’t quite mature enough to understand them. He runs around the apartment and takes pictures of the back of people’s heads (apparently its existence is in question since no one can quite see it). His teacher invectively cuts him down and criticizes his pictures as “avant-garde”, but Yang-Yang inevitably gets his revenge.

The movie is anchored by interspersed scenes of the grandmother, who suffers a stroke and in her comatose state represents different things to different people. NJ speaks to her like he speaks to the divine in prayer, unsure of whether anybody is listening on the other end. NJ’s wife, Min-Min, is afraid of the way in which her mother is withered and frail and obstinate in her silence; the stridency and force of her repeated words seems to be unable to break through. To NJ’s daughter, Ting-Ting, her grandmother represents regret; Ting-Ting thinks that she is responsible for the comatose state.

It is the expert way in which Edward Yang brings these different strands together that makes “Yi Yi” a joy to watch. He has an eye for human behavior that is without distortion and garnish. The film is consistently paced, and yet at three hours it’s not something that everyone will enjoy. This is a film for those who like to observe the small ways in which people interact every single day, and that, by observing others and intuiting their experiences, we become, if not mature, then perhaps weathered individuals, truly having lived the lives of others.

Edward Yang (director) / Edward Yang (screenplay)
CAST: Nien-Jen Wu … NJ
Elaine Jin … Min-Min
Jonathan Change … Yang-Yang
Kelly Lee … Ting-Ting
Hsi-Sheng Chen … Ah-Di
Su-Yun Ko … Sherry
Pang Chang Yu … Fatty
Issey Ogata … Ota