Yi Yi
ive been watching too many emotional movies lately, so i tried promising myself to watch anything but for a while. obviously i broke that promise, cause i kept thinking about Yi Yi every day - replaying certain scenes, listening to the soundtrack, watching video essays - that i gave up and decided to watch this behemoth of a film a second time in a little more than a month.
i feel that this review will be almost the same as my first one, because i still have the same difficulty of having perfect comprehension of this movie, but honestly i think that's fine. the movie perfectly weaves several different lives, themes, and plotlines into one cohesive story that expresses so much, yet never gives a clear answer to it all.
the best way i could describe it is that it's like zooming out. i remember hearing this idea about like, seeing yourself in third person, and as a tiny speck in the world. it was always a comfortable feeling for me, because it makes me feel everything is less complicated than it seems to be. I feel that the very core of Yi Yi encapsulates that, encouraging us to see ourselves from other perspectives, whether it be reflections, photographs, or each other.
i also wanna elaborate more on my first review when i said that it really does feel like the early 2000s, more so that it reminded me a lot of my early childhood, lol. both my parents come from huge families (10+ siblings on each side) so we used to have a lot of parties, trips, wacky drama, etc etc etc, so i always teared up a bit whenever the large family that Yi Yi is centered about is highlighted. As I get older, and my relatives slowly separate from each other, I start learning more and more about my family (that my mom and dad, individually, haven't told me before for some funny reason), and it makes me wonder even more what everyone was going through back then, and how they're keeping up with life now despite everything that's happened. After seeing Yi Yi, i hope i only grow to understand the people in my life more, including myself.
bonus thought: yang-yang you have to stop. you SMOKE too tough. your SWAG too different. your BITCH is too BAD. THEYLL KILL YOU https://i.imgur.com/RSO5fdV.jpeg