Yi Yi (2000)

Film: Yi Yi

Director: Edward Yang

Country: Taiwan

Released: May 2000

Runtime: 173 minutes

Genre: Drama

Studio: 1+2 Seisaku Iinkai

Influenced: Hirokazu Koreeda, Richard Linklater, Olivier Assayas, Kelly Reichardt, Ryusuke Hamaguchi

Edward Yang’s last and arguably most profound contribution to world cinema, Yi Yi is an undisputed masterpiece. It’s so good that I forked out the money to buy the Criterion Blu-ray edition. In the liner notes, critic Kent Jones says that no Asian director (or arguably any director) has "rendered city life with such wondrous clarity" as Yang has in Yi Yi. Taiwanese capital Taipei serves as a backdrop to the film, with the city's rapid changes mirroring the characters' inner turmoil. Jones also talks about the director's use of poetic overlapping, and how the sound from a previous shot continues into the next (seemingly unrelated) shot and invests it with new meaning. For example, we see the ultrasound scan of the child of A-Di (Chen Hsi-sheng) and Xiao-Yan (Hsiao Shu-shen), but overlaying the image of this physical new life is the sound of the figurative new life that Japanese video game designer Ota (Issey Ogata) is trying to breath into the computer company of lead character NJ (Wu Nien-jen).

Yang's approach to storytelling is also marked by a deliberate and naturalistic pace, and the director's regular collaborator and cinematographer Yang Wei-han puts an emphasis on long takes and static shots, investing the film with a contemplative and meditative quality. Yi Yi was shot in black and white initially, but Yang later decided to reshoot it in colour. The actors were also encouraged to improvise their dialogue, giving their performances a natural and genuine quality. All of life is in the film – marriage, death, childhood, first love, pregnancy, birth, school, work, etc – giving Yi Yi the feel of a majestic symphony. The director himself makes a touching cameo in the film, performing a concert on stage with his wife, concert pianist Kai-Li Peng. Yang spent several years writing the screenplay for Yi Yi and drew inspiration from his own life experiences and those of his friends.

Like his Taiwanese compatriots, Yang is concerned with tracking the political, economic and social changes in his country, but with Yi Yi he is just as concerned with contemporary Taiwan as he is the past. The film's title, which can mean "one by one" in Mandarin, reflects its focus on individual lives and experiences within the larger context of a family. Yi Yi follows the Jian family over the course of a year, including NJ's cute young son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), a curious and quirky boy who takes photographs of the backs of people's heads to understand the unseen aspects of life. NJ's daughter Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee) is arguably the character that grows most during the film, grappling with the challenges of first love and her sense of guilt at her grandmother being in a coma. Yi Yi also evokes the idea of taking life one step at a time, as well as the phrase, "a one and a two...", with music a constant feature of the film. NJ has pictures of Bob Dylan and The Beatles on his wall, while classical music can often be heard on the soundtrack or in certain scenes, like when NJ and Ota have a drunken night out in a karaoke bar.

Ota has some of the best, most poetic lines in the film, such as: "Growing up my family was very poor. Music made me believe life is beautiful". NJ looks preoccupied throughout the film, weighted down by all the responsibilities of midlife, but his encounters with Ota and Sherry (Kelly Ko), an old flame, provide him some solace and prompt him to reflect on his life choices. Yi Yi received numerous awards and nominations, including the Best Director award at Cannes in 2000. It was also Taiwan's official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 73rd Oscars, but won nothing – even though it far surpasses any of the films nominated for Best Picture. Yi Yi's reputation has grown significantly since and it is now considered one of the greatest films of the 21st century. It has one of the most powerfully emotional scenes in all of cinema, when we see NJ and Sherry reminiscing about their first date, and falling in love, overlaid with footage of Ting-Ting holding hands for the first time with her new boyfriend. As Japanese director Ryusuke Hamaguchi has said, "Yi Yi is another name for the hope that Edward Yang passed on to future audiences – that the world is still worth loving."