Yi Yi (2000) Movie Review

The Chinese character for "Yi Yi" can be interpreted in many ways. Literally, it reads, "One One", but properly, it represents "Two". Similarly, the film presents a multiplicity of meaning, conveyed with effortless ease through simple gestures and scenes.

"Yi Yi" does not actually contain a plot so much as it is an observation of life, through its depiction of an ordinary Taiwanese family undergoing several crises. Yet the film is filled with gentle humour - family disagreements comically degenerate into a shouting match and the antics of Yang-Yang, the precocious and wise 8-year-old boy, delights with his honesty and artlessness. Each member of the family is richly detailed, and though they are perfectly ordinary, it is this quality that endears them to us, because their trials and tribulations are readily sympathetic.

Edward Yang's direction is slow and meditative, slowly unfurling scenes one by one. There is a clever sequence where the daughter and son unwittingly act out their father's memories of love and romance. Often the camera lingers, some thing that might irritate those who would have already become impatient with the film's epic length (just short of three hours). The cast apparently was made up of non-actors, something which is risky at the best of times but which works to add to the film's charm.

This film is definitely not for anyone, especially not those who prefers being distracted by explosions, flashing lights, bared flesh and single-layered plotlines. I had some trepidation when going to watch this movie because I feared it was going to a buttock-destroying ordeal. I had expected a Taiwanese film like the overwrought melodramatic histrionic soap operas that populated television back in my childhood days (more often hysterically funny than moving). But I was very surprised and delightfully so. As one character in the film states, movies expand our lives, making us live three times more of a lifetime. It is certainly true for this film, but for all the right reasons.