../yi-yi

Yi Yi

At a glance...

"Movie's are so lifelike, that's why we love them."

"Then who needs movies? Just stay home and live life!"

When I first watched this film I was obsessed with all these shots through glass, where the combination of the reflection and transparency of the window obscured the audience from the suffering of the characters. I now, almost conspiratorially, believe that these shots are also to make us see that this story is happening in a space that has been replicated with precision all across the environment. Every time you see through and out a window you are met with a high rise, an office building, or some other part of the urban landscape. You are dared to wonder if this story is happening at the same time somewhere else, somewhere that might even look identical to this place. I have never cared about extras in scenes the way I found myself caring for them this time in Yi Yi. By constructing drama from the organic connections that tie each person to people in their environment, one-half of a story at a time, you get the sense that everyone could be a subject for this film, including yourself.

We feel so fucking alone. The structures of our modern world loom over us and suffocate us. We are just getting by from one day to the next, and then when something happens that is supposed to matter, we find ourselves hollowed out to what it all means. The path forward, as Ota says himself, is not a magic trick. It is looking into the screen and seeing ourselves. It is looking at each other and seeing ourselves. It is recognizing that every person we are antagonistically forced into financial combat with in technological capitalism is looking into us as we look into them. What is Ota's great innovation in this film? It is not being a good worker or a dedicated employee or an ace game developer. It is, in fact, refusing to even seriously discuss "business" with NJ and opening up to him instead. "We are alike. We cannot tell a lie." And even still, Ting-Ting's conversation with Fatty at the cafe is Edward Yang acknowledging the futility of this art form to alleviate our suffering so long as it can only fixate on depicting violence, while also recognizing that violence in the world is a necessary precondition for violence at the movies. In a reference to itself, when the movie decides it both needs to depict a real-world lashing out of violence and doesn't want to fetishize it, we get maybe the funniest cut in the whole movie.

This time, Yi Yi feels deeply like a defense of empathy for ourselves when we cross the line, when we make a mess, and when we fail. Yi Yi is in love with the movies as much as it is wracked with frustration towards them. Yi Yi makes me feel old, and makes me feel rejuvenated. We cannot will our problems away, not even with hindsight, and probably not even with a second chance. But we can make music with strangers, we can invite each other back even after things end, we can do anything because every day is the first day. In this broken world that seems to be unending and beyond our ability to control, we are still alive, and no movie has made me feel more grateful for that than this one. It is my favorite movie, without a doubt in my mind.




A random aside that didn't fit in the above review:

Since this most recent viewing, I have found myself interacting with a few people who happen to ask what's a good movie I've seen recently. I tell them the name of this film and then am at an impasse. How do I describe Yi Yi in a way that will make it seem interesting? What's the elevator pitch to sell this movie to my girlfriend's girlfriend, who is not a big movie person? How would I pitch a 3 hour long foreign language film to my dentist? Well, I got an opportunity to try both cases, and somehow I was most successful with my dentist! I wish I could remember exactly what I told her, but I am sure it was a combination of both my enthusiasm and my actual words that made her say she wanted to watch it. And yes, I mentioned it was 3 hours long. Maybe she was just talking me up while waiting for the lidocaine to work its way through my mouth, but she both practiced saying and spelling the name of the film and expressed a lot of interest to me and kept wanting to talk about movies, even after the weird rubber tarp thing was in my mouth and I couldn't talk. I will have to update someday to hear what she thinks of it, if she gets around to watching it. It was not the typical kind of movie she watched, it sounded like, but I am hopeful and curious as to what will happen in the time from now until my next appointment.

Also, I saw a reddit comment (I know) that really challenged me, where someone dismissed this film as regular 'ol bourgeois cinema that's meant to placate people. I have been thinking about it on and off for a while, and I think it's silly I even feel compelled to respond, but I'll say that on some level I agree there is a bourgeois element that cannot be separated from this film. Not just in the situation of the family that is the subject of the film, but in the political origins of the Taiwanese new wave and Edward Yang's career and just the nature of Chinese nationalism that is a fundamental part of Taiwanese history. For me, that's what actually makes this movie, and all of Edward Yang's movies that I've seen so far, feel so compelling to me. Here he was making a film that was deeply about Taiwanese life specifically, but because of the time period in which it's taking place, it transforms into something that is more universally about globalized capital as a whole. The reason I as an immigrant to America relate so much to the tension between tradition and capital for these Taiwanese families is because a similar alienation was happening with my Chinese family. And on some level, this movie is not trying to reach for solutions to these things, but rather is like bringing yourself closer to your own situation by having you relate to this specific story. I guess since I brought it up I have to have an answer, maybe the answer is, if you consider exploring the alienation of life in late-stage capitalism (perhaps in anticipation of its digital excesses, since this came out in 2000) to be placating, I would love to know what your favorite movie is!

/2000/ /5 stars/ /Rewatch/