Yi Yi is about life and everything it contains. It's about love and heartbreak; remembering and forgetting; creating and destroying; budding friendships and vicious rivalries; success and failure; marriage and infidelity; happiness and depression the beauty of music and also of silence; the passage of time; and most of all life and death. How does this one movie say so much about so many things? It takes it's time, it expects the viewer to pay attention and work with the director to create a world that expands beyond the edges of the frame. It allows you time to appreciate what's happening in front of you, but it also asks that you bring your own prior experiences with you. This is a film that I believe could be watched at various moments of your life, and you could get something new from it every time. It's a film that looks at the curious age of young childhood, the uncertainty that comes with being a teenager, the regrets of middle age, and the reflection of old age. Edward Yang takes time in crafting wonderfully memorable characters that feel tactile and believable. The trials and challenges faced by the members of the Taipei family are not world changing, but they do change their lives. They're an everyday family, trying their best to live life to the fullest (whatever that means), doing their best to figure out where they fit in the world. To call this film anything but a masterpiece would be an insult to cinema.
Review of Yi Yi
