A middle-class Taiwanese family must overcome several crises.
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A wedding and a grandmother's illness reveal fault lines
in the lives of one Taipei family in Edward Yang's extraordinary
film. Yi Yi is built from deceptively simple elements that
together create a complex, warm, and utterly convincing portrait
of family life. NJ Jian is a businessman facing bankruptcy, but
he has to juggle his financial problems with family strife when
his mother-in-law falls into a coma. NJ's wife, Min-Min, brings
her mother home, and each family member--including daughter
Ting-Ting and her delightful little brother Yang-Yang--spends
hours talking to the old lady. These conversations become
confessionals and the characters gradually re-evaluate their
relationships. There are no catastrophic conflicts, only the
ordinary, sometimes troubled, unfolding of lives. Yang enhances
the film's sense of reality by frequently holding the camera back
from the action. The use of long s and unexpected angles
makes it seem like the audience is eavesdropping, catching
glimpses of lives passing by. Yi Yi is almost three hours long,
but it flies by. Yang is both a consummate, restrained technician
and a subtle director of actors. The combination is a magical
one. --Simon Leake
On the DVD
The Criterion Collection's newly restored high-definition
digital transfer of Edward Yang's Yi Yi is a revelation. The
improvement over Fox Lorber's previous DVD release (deeply flawed
and rushed into distribution in 2001, and now utterly obsolete)
is so dramatic that an entire article was devoted to the subject
in the New York Times, explaining the meticulous processes that
went into perfecting the new DVD master for Criterion's
definitive release. And while the feature-length commentary by
writer-director Edward Yang and Asian-cinema critic Tony Rayns
may be a bit too low-key for some listeners (because both Yang
and Rayns are soft-spoken and not particularly dynamic speakers),
attentive listeners will benefit greatly from their
back-and-forth conversation. Yang provides in-depth ins into
many aspects of Taiwanese cinema in general and Yi Yi in
particular, from the hardships of distribution, competition from
American films, his casting choices, explanations of specific
s, challenges and "happy accidents" during production, and
various details regarding Taiwanese culture, its relation to
Chinese and Japanese culture, and the familial traditions that
are so affectionately explored in Yi Yi. Rayns is basically on
hand to prompt Yang into making directorial observations, or to
provide critical ins and observations for Yang to respond
to. Both men are genial, intelligent, and articulate, so their
commentary is well worth listening to for anyone interested in
Asian cinema in a cultural context.
Rayns is featured individually in an informative video interview
in which the noted Asian cinema expert explains the historical
context which brought about the "New Taiwan Cinema" movement in
the early 1980s. He goes into deeper detail about Edward Yang's
significance to the movement, along with other important
Taiwanese directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang,
and examines how Yang's films (especially Yi Yi) are particularly
distinctive, notably in their use of urban settings, reflections,
and distant, immobile camera angles to emphasize character and
behavior. Film Comment editor Kent Jones further elaborates on
the qualities of Yi Yi in his enclosed booklet essay
(particularly Yang's exquisite use of Taipei locations and his
subtle sensitivity to the rhythms of urban living in "a film
about grace"). In "Notes from Edward Yang," the director provides
additional printed comments about the film's title (which
literally translates as "one-one" and means "individually" in
Chinese), the challenges of casting, and specific details and
milestones in Yi Yi's production schedule. Overall, these details
should prove highly useful to western viewers seeking to gain a
greater appreciation for Yang's highly regarded masterpiece.
--Jeff Shannon