Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

If there’s one part of the world I should watch more movies from it’s definitely Asia. Every now and then I do decide to watch Asian cinema and it rarely disappoints me, but somehow I am not watching as many as I should. Why this is? Not a clue. Maybe the big cultural difference compared to the ‘conventional’ Hollywood movies I grew up with and defined my standards. Yesterday I decided it was about time to watch the 3 hour long Yi Yi from Taiwan, and boy was it worth my time!

The movie portrays a family living in Taipei. We kick off with a wedding where the whole family is presented to us. The family is shortly forced to take care of their grandmother who is in a coma. In a network narrative the movie mainly follows four family members starting with the dad NJ, who is unhappy in his job and forced to do business with a Japanese videogame company associate, making him aware of the purely commercial aim of his colleagues. When he runs into an old flame he evaluates his entire life and being. His youngest, 8 year old son Yang Yang, has trouble with his teachers and female students and likes to make photographs. His daughter is getting involved with the boyfriend of her friend who lives next door. Finally we follow NJ’s brother-in-law who has a lot of trouble with his newly wed involving an ex-girlfriend who shows up at their baby shower.

The strength of this film is the universality of the story. Even though it plays in Taiwan, the stories are those of every day life and could be yours or mine just as well. It never dramatizes or wants to be pretentious, it simply shows us the lives of the different generations in a family and what they are dealing with. The length of 173 minutes never feels too long, again nothing special or spectacular happens in this movie but it gets your attention from the first to last minute. The final scene brings all the members together and is simply brilliant. A movie that gets under your skin with ease without ever forcing anything.

Of course from a Hollywood perspective associations with movies like Magnolia or Babel can be made. The main difference between those two titles and Yi Yi is the fact that I would call this movie more modest and calm. The story doesn’t really build up to a climax but nevertheless fascinated me until the last second. It sounds corny, but this is really a movie about life, nothing more and nothing less. The writer-director Edward Yang deserves a lot of credit (received the best director award at Cannes) for making such a delicate and pure picture. I couldn’t pick one or two scenes that make the difference, it really is a movie as a whole, demonstrating the brilliance of the writer. If I had to pick one scene though there is a wonderful sequence where NJ and his former love are evaluating their lives, which reminded me of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset, but again I have a Hollywood reference frame.

Yi Yi impressed me deeply and it likely might end up as one of my personal favorites (I suspect a second viewing will impress me even more). I will not spend too many words, just watch this ‘small’ masterpiece. I will for sure search for more Asian films like this. Comes highly recommended!

10/10