One of modern cinema’s greatest tragedies is the death of 59 year old Taiwanese director Edward Yang (from colon cancer in 2007). He made his directorial debut at the age of 35 in 1982 with “In Our Time”. The eight films he made in his career were highly regarded among art-house & festival circuits, but his films didn’t reach wider audience like the works of other film-makers, belonging to Taiwanese new wave – Hou Hsiao-hsien & Tsai Ming-liang. Yang’s four hour sociopolitical epic “A Bright Summer Day” (1991) and the multi-generational masterpiece “Yi yi” (A One and a Two, 2000) were the works that reached and grabbed the attention of cinephiles around the globe (he earned ‘Best Director’ award in Cannes for ‘Yi yi’). Personally, Yang’s “Yi yi” has had a lasting influence on me. The film takes us on a one year trip into the lives of a Taipei middle-class family. It examines different emotionalities of the members of a ordinary middle-class family with an unbelievable amount of nuance.
“Yi yi” starts with a Chinese wedding and ends with a
funeral service, which might make the viewers to easily observe the ‘circle of
life’ message. But, Yang’s simplistic yet philosophical narrative approach bestows
a one of a kind movie experience. The middle-aged father NJ Jian (Wu Nienjen) is
one of the partners in a computer hardware firm that’s going through a
transitional stage. The film opens with the marriage of NJ’s brother-in-law
A-Di (Hsi-Sheng Chen). The visuals of easygoing wedding celebrations make us
feel at home. Then a distraught woman
arrives, crying in front of the family matriarch (A-Di’s mother): “It should
have been me marrying your son” and she asks “where’s that pregnant bitch”
(addressing A-Di’s bride). As the title-card emerges, we get a closer look at
the elegant grandmother (Ru-Yun Tang), a former teacher, who feels too old to
encounter all the familial strife.
The grandma suffers a stroke as the family is attending the wedding
reception. She goes into coma and the doctors recommend that they take her home
and hope that she regains consciousness. The doctor also recommend the family members
to take turns in taking with the grandmother to elicit some response. The other
members of Jiang family are: working mother
Min-Min (Elaine Jin), whose depression escalates while tending to her comatose
mother; teenage daughter Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee), who is for the first time
feeling polarizing emotions like love and guilt; eight year old Yang-Yang
(Jonathan Chang), a lively boy who is obsessed with the idea of ‘showing stuff
people haven’t seen’. NJ has a chance meeting with his old flame Sherry (Su-Yun Ko) during the wedding. She asks “Why didn’t you come that day? I waited and waited
and never got over it, you know”.
NJ gets a chance to rendezvous with her in Tokyo, while his
wife Min-Min seeks a cure for her depression in a local religious outfit. Ting-Ting
experiences her first love with the disdained boyfriend of her next door
neighbor & friend, Lili (Adriene Lin). The family is gradually getting to be
dysfunctional, but ‘Yi yi’ isn’t your typical suburban drama, where illicit sexual
relationships and throwing expletives at each other becomes a way to cope with the
aloofness. This is a family whom we could relate with our personal experiences
and the breakdowns and recuperation in the narrative never sting our senses
with melodrama.
Spoilers Ahead
"Dad, I Can’t See What You See"
Adorable Yang-Yang, who expresses wisdom far behind his years,
says to his father at one point: “Daddy I can’t know what you see and you can’t
know what I see! How can I know what you see”? The boy asks this amazing
question about human perception, but the father gives a more practical answer: “That’s
why we need a camera. Do you want to play with one?” The boy then photographs
mosquitoes on his apartment corridor and few other things to show to his
parents, since these are the things they can’t see. He goes to develop the
photos during school recess and gets caught by a teacher, who dismisses his
work as ‘avant-garde’ art. Apart from lending a charming series of scenes, the
question itself seems to be subtly haunting each of the characters. Mother
Min-Min cries out to her husband, one night, because she doesn’t have much to
tell to her unconscious mother. She is not only crying for her inability to communicate,
but also dreads a future, when her own children wouldn’t be able to relate to
her.
NJ hints at his past on why he grew distant from his former lover,
Sherry. “You pushed me to become an engineer. Did you ever ask what I wanted”
says NJ to Sherry, stating how she thought of a better future without ever
perceiving the inner-thoughts of her partner. A-Di runs into problems because
he lacks perception on everything: from marriage to business. Ting-Ting, after going
through the throes of early adolescence thinks how her own perception is so different
from what happens in reality: “Why is the world so different from what we
thought it was”. Grandma feels too old because her family members can’t see
what she perceives and vice-versa. In the final ambiguous scene, Ting-Ting asks
her grandma: “Now that you’re awake and see it again…has it changed at all?
Now I’ve closed my eyes…the world I see is so beautiful". Yang’s cinema works
into viewers’ mind to express how each character perceive things and he also
subtly shows how selfless love & communication could eradicate this perception
problem.
"Even If I was given a Second Chance I wouldn’t need it"
The irony experienced by all the characters is that even knowing
the other side of truth (like what if NJ rekindles his love for Sherry) and the second chances wouldn’t have made immense
changes to their lives. The characters acknowledge the fact that they have already laid
path to their life through the choices taken. They recognize that
we human beings always yearn for missed opportunities, which once attained may leaves us with an acidic taste of reality. Min-Min has made peace with her life; not as a
result of the master’s teachings. Her brief vacation time makes her to take a
step backward and self-reflect on what matters in life. NJ, despite, leaving
Sherry for forcing him to become an engineer has in reality works as a computer
engineer. He adores his daughter and wants to treat his son as a friend,
and so he comes to terms that second chances wouldn’t bring back what he once
experienced.
It is the backward step each character takes and
contemplates these chances is what makes “Yi Yi”, a tangible movie experience. The
characters aren’t pressured into making sudden romantic decisions. Their
ordinary worldly experiences make them to question the transgressive phases in
life, unlike what we see in the restless American suburban dramas. NJ comments
to Sherry on how the hotel manager saw him when he asked two separate rooms for
them (“To sleep with someone means nothing now”). He and Sherry have chosen to relive a part of their youth, but are smart enough to not engage themselves in an
affair. At the same time, Ting-Ting checks into a hotel with Fatty, but the
young man restlessly stands near the doorstep and then runs away, reciting “This
is not right”. First or second chances, the characters’ hesitations and awkward pause could be universally
related by the members of middle-class. Director Yang also shows how certain wrong choices
(through Lili’s mother and A-Di without judging them) in life can bring ineffable sadness.
"Life is a Mixture of Sad and Happy Things"
The dichotomy we experience – happiness and sadness
(perfectly expressed by the word ‘bittersweet’) – bears a great importance in
shaping our lives. In a way, we all spend our lives confronting the ripples
created by the waves of joy and misery. Edward Yang finds a way to imbue his
philosophical insights even in a mundane dating scene. In this sequence, Ting-Ting
and Fatty, discuss on the duality of life and movies. At one point in the
conversation, the over-caring girl naively states “If we are nice to people, they’ll be
nice back”. But, soon she feels how wrong her perception was and the ensuing emotional
complexity makes her to embrace the duality. In fact, director Yang finds
dichotomy in the two significant events in the film –wedding celebration and
mourning. He finds darkness in the celebration and the optimistic side in a
funeral gathering. The narrative itself is juxtaposed with morbid thoughts and
genuine happiness.
The Writers’ Voice and the Incredible Performances
A majority of the wise comments made by Yang-Yang or Mr. Ota
seems to have derived from the film-maker’s personal experiences. In an
interview to ‘Guardian’, the director states how writing the small boy’s
character laid foundation to his narrative. “I think we were all once that way,
with all kinds of questions, and we didn't know which one was more
philosophical than the other because we didn't have answers to any of them”
says Yang. Fatty’s comments on movies; NJ’s detestation over pursuing
engineering studies (Yang studied electrical engineering in the University of
Florida, before opting to become a film-maker) and Mr. Ota’s clear-eyed insights shows
how the details could have only risen from writer Yang’s mind. But, despite
these tad didactic dialogues, Yang the director gives enough space for the
actors to accommodate the characters’ weaknesses and strength. Mr. Ota states a
straight-forward preachy line like: “Why are we afraid of the first time? Every
day in life is a first time. Every morning is new. We never live the same day
twice. We're never afraid of getting up every morning. Why?” But, Yang and the
actor (Issei Ogata) who played Ota brings a depth to their performances that never turn the scenario into a mere exchange of dialogues.
“Yi yi” marks the debut for both Kelly Lee (Ting-Ting) and
Jonathan Chang (Yang-Yang). While Kelly never again acted in a movie, Jonathan
has only starred in two other movies. The unselfconscious performance by two of
these young actors provides an emotional anchor for the viewers. The restrained
emotions were possible because they are not just pretending. My favorite brief
moments involving these young actors are: when Yang-Yang gets enlightened by
the busted balloon to devise a prank on a gang of bullying little girls, and the fleeting smile he directs at his father while
eating at McDonald's; when Ting-Ting begs her grandma to wake up as a sign of
pardon. Nien-Jen Wu, who played NJ, is a veteran screenwriter. Being a writer
himself, Wu perfectly brings what Yang strives to achieve with NJ (a
character with unimpaired moral compass).
Aesthetic Approach and Flawless Juxtapositions
Yang approaches buffoonery and melodramatic outbursts from a
distance. The opening drunken revelry and Yun-Yun disruptive entrance (“It
should have been me marrying your son today”) are only observed; not used to
manipulate viewers into judging the characters. But, when Yang really wants to
tap into characters’ genuine feelings – like happiness, shocks, confessions and
misery -- his camera lingers a little closer. The shots peering through the high-rise apartments and offices, and glass windows states how the city is
bustling with lives that are moving along, going through invisible transitions. The 'glass window' shots hint at life’s interconnectedness, while
the ‘shrouded-in-shadows’ shot gives an obscurity to the characters. In one of
the many excellent shots, we see Min-Min pensively staring at the glass window
of her high-rise office. The office is cloaked in darkness and she stumbles
while walking to a chair due to emotional turmoil. The 'glass window' shot
creates a feeling as if she is walking on a tight rope between two buildings.
Yang impeccably employs life’s ironies as well as
similarities. He juxtaposes pregnancy ultrasound scans with the voice-over of
Mr. Ota explaining on evolution of human beings & computer games; NJ recalls
his nervousness on the first date with Sherry, while we see Ting-Ting nervously
holding hands with Fatty for her first date; a nature documentary is screened
with a narrator explaining on thunder and lightning, while thunder strikes
inside Yang-Yang’s heart as he watches a girl, and experiences his first crush.
“Yi yi” (173 minutes) genuinely contemplates on life’s
simple discoveries and paradoxes without any melodramatic contrivances.
“Basically,
life, I think, is when good things have its dark side and bad things have its
brighter side.”
-- Edward Yang
-- Edward Yang
Trailer
2 comments:
Interesting dissection of the movie!
INteresting ...am goona watch this for sure
IID Outfit Ideas
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