Yi Yi (2000)
Living three lifetimes in three hours.
Presentation:
Edward Yang’s greatest contribution to cinema is an unassuming masterpiece of storytelling. Seamlessly weaving the stories of 6 peoples lives across 3 generations together in a cohesive family drama, we get to see life experiences of Taiwanese struggles from all angles and ages. The film starts a bit slow like all his developing films, but is made more bearable with much better cinematography and pacing. It’s shot in a classic Chinese manner with objective framing and long observatory lensing. There is abundant use of shooting through glass, allowing scenes to feel like a reflection of ourselves and portray the unforgiving bustle of society to remind us how inconsequential our problems are. By the middle of the film, it’s surprising how much Yang makes us care about the characters.
Conclusion:
Compared to A Brighter Summer Day, this film is less epic in scale with its more intimate approach, but ends up being more profoundly relatable. With the poignant realism, there shouldn’t be a person that won’t be able to relate to at least one story arc. This film is a serious slow burn and not meant for slow attention spans. It’s 100 percent character development though somewhat lacks the emotional rewards from a more subjective perspective. Nevertheless, Yang’s unique soap opera style is refreshing and still enamoring to watch all the way through. A compete and thorough analysis of modern life, this is the most cinematic if not greatest soap opera film of all time.
Recommendations
Subverting suburban horror.