Edward Yang’s Yi Yi is the kind of movie that’s intimidating to write about at first glance. A classic that has been evaluated, canonized, and praised many times over in the quarter-century since its release that surely there isn’t anything left to be said about the film. I don’t claim to have had any major epiphanies while watching it for the first, second, and third times over the past couple of weeks. What I did learn is that Yi Yi is timeless and its pleasures will shift, grow, and resonate for as long as people discover and revisit it. Criterion’s new 4K UHD release of the film allowed me the opportunity to fill an embarrassing blind spot, then go back for multiple viewings to fall under deeper under its spell.
As it begins, Yi Yi has the feeling of a kind stranger opening their arms and welcoming you in. Peng Kai-Li’s swelling score extends another warm greeting to viewers, creating the sensation that you’re settling into this world and, soon, these characters. Over the three hours (real time) that we spend with the Jian family (for a year of their time), I felt as if I was with my own family. Yang creates a world and characters so lived in that at times Yi Yi plays more like a docudrama than a film. If you can’t find something in Yi Yi that connects to your own life, you’re probably lying to yourself. In the year we spend with the Jian family, we see weddings, death, love (unrequited, tested, and enduring), people coming together and growing apart. Yang has crafted a rich and deep well to draw from.
The storyline that grabbed me right away is that of NJ (Wu Nien-jen) and Sherry (Su-Yun Ko), former lovers whose reconnection opens up old wounds, or tosses a dash of salt into wounds that never healed. Thirty years ago they had plans for a lifetime spent together, when NJ disappeared from Sherry’s life. When we catch up with them, it’s clear that Sherry has never really moved on from her feelings for NJ or the hurt his abandonment caused. When they cross paths as Sherry is exiting the elevator NJ and his son are waiting for, it’s one of those moments that is monumental in the context of their lives, but as casual as can be in the moment. For anyone who has had a specific emotion tied to a person, be it love, longing, fear, shame, pride, or whatever, Sherry’s reaction is as piercing as if it were your own. For Sherry, it’s as if she’s been sucker punched, instantly transported to where she was 30 years ago. But, as we come to learn, this is actually how she’s been living her life. It’s hard to overstate how good Ko’s performance is. I eventually got the point where I dreaded and perked up when Sherry appeared. She is devastatingly great.
The connection and divide between Sherry and NJ is represented by one of the film’s key themes, which is that no one can ever be completely sure what is going on around them, whether that be what’s happening immediately behind them where they literally can’t see, or what’s happening with the people in your life. NJ’s son, Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), is the one who elegantly lays this out while explaining the pictures he’s collected of people, taken from behind. The subjects of the photos have their backs to the camera and, thus, to half of the world around them. Yang-Yang is not a precocious kid as movies have conditioned us to expect, but a normal kid who speaks with the clarity and simplicity that comes with youth. I’ve seen these shots from behind a person’s back in nearly every movie I’ve ever seen. We all have, the way Yang, through Yang-Yang, recontextualizes this most common of shots is revelatory. Perspective is something we are all aware of, but it’s also easy to lose track of. We’re all susceptible to tunnel vision and so are the characters throughout Yi Yi. Sherry is the character where I see this most clearly.
As I sit here writing this, the word that keeps coming back to me is earnestness. Yang’s script is full of the typical dramas we all face throughout life, but instead of feeling staid and repetitive, Yi Yi is sincere and empathetic. Yang presents the characters and life for what it is, which is full of contradictions, ups, downs, and recurring emotions. All the best humanist filmmakers are attuned to this. It’s the people that make life so unique. Love, death, divorce, fights, firings, protests, friendships, it’s all happened before will happen an infinite number of times going forward. But our individual relationship to those things, and the context in which they affect us will never be the same. It can’t be. Over Yi Yi’s three hour runtime, Yang allows situations to repeat: bedside confessionals to a comatose grandmother, Sherry and NJ’s conversations, A-Di’s (Chen Hsi-Shang) money troubles, Ting-Ting’s (Kelly Lee) depression. The film never feels rushed or repetitive. We’ve all experienced this. Certain scenarios appear throughout our lives, but the context is always different and our responsives are rarely the same. Life is constant, unstoppable movement and evolution. It can be jarring and dramatic, but more often than not the changes are subtle. Yi Yi is life-affirming, reminding us that life is best lived with us as active participants.
Yi Yi is available in 4K UHD and Blu-ray
