Yi Yi

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? It is a Sunday. I wake up feeling unfulfilled, maybe fatigued, a feeling that I have found familiar for a while, and still struggle to articulate. Perhaps it is a yearning, a desire for more, or a perpetual need for something else. Something new. I feel as though I am living the same day twice. The same life, even. I am tired of this yearning. Material pleasures rarely gratify the inconvenience I must endure to obtain them. Is a movie ticket a material pleasure? I’d like to think what I’m buying is an experience. Does something have to be tangible for it to be material? I know I am purchasing a seat, for an allocated time, in a venue that distributors screen their films at… I laugh at myself for entertaining such an absurd train of thought, and then once more, now, for also choosing to post it. Though I must accept I have grown to become negligent of my digital footprint. This fleeting sense of fulfillment which I chase, but do not enjoy chasing is part of why I have developed this habit. I rarely go without seeing a few films a month now, in theatres, foolishly. I convince myself there are always worse things I could be wasting money on. As I am thinking this through, I get up to leave for Yi Yi. I do not know it yet, but as I walk for my train to get to my mid-day screening, I have an assignment that is due at midnight that I will scramble to submit in time when I get back. It’s a good bit of stress, but not an ideal distraction, of course, not as efficient as the escapism that a good movie provides. I have intentionally avoided reading anything about this film in the days leading up to seeing it, and I did not have the time to check the length of its runtime. Little do I know I’m about to sit down for a three-hour film. In the forty or so minutes I am hastily commuting to the theatre, I think about how, five years ago, I likely would have never felt the urge to go out and see this film. Back then, I still loved cinema, but I wasn’t so sure of it yet. I had sporadically recorded the dates I had seen films I’d really liked, I’d convinced my parents to waste a fair amount of money on DVDs, and movie tickets. I considered myself an enthusiast of the theatrical experience, and screening formats. I would appreciate the tactile sensation of running through video CDs, Blu-rays and other physical media formats I could get my hands on. I am not sure exactly when I got into film, but some of my earliest memories consist of watching HBO as often as I read through my bookshelf. As I walk out of the screening, I am glad I saw this in a cinema. The screen wasn’t necessarily as big as I would have liked. I would have liked to be a bit more vertically aligned and horizontally centered to the screen. I am reminded of the significance of a viewing experience in how a film is perceived. I open my notes app, hoping to remember to return to my thoughts and perhaps articulate what I think of this film. I think a film can often be described as an epitomisation of its most memorable strongest, and weakest moments. This is why an opening, a closing shot, or a single sequence can often make or break a film for me. I very often overlook the good and distract myself with the bad, as well as vice versa. And sometimes, the bad outshines the good. Yi Yi can uniquely toe the line at points. Not necessarily with regards to its quality, but at holding my interest. It gets meandering. It’s not necessarily unpredictable. It’s almost naturalistic to a fault. I’m not too fond of melodrama or have a great deal of patience for romance, and it can be overly simple in its messaging and obvious in its philosophy. Even still, I had a very interesting time with Yi Yi. It reminded me a lot of one of my childhood favourite films, in its thematic focuses which made me think of Pixar’s Up. And more recently, it made me recall Aftersun with regards to some of its narrative construction. It’s interesting returning to slightly older films with such modern cinematic reference points, when you work backwards with regards to influence. It also shares a bit in common with Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice what with it being Yang’s final film as well, and including a young boy as a central focal point. Similar to Tarkovsky’s incessant friction and censorship over the release of his films in his homeland, Yi Yi is a film that didn’t release in Yang’s Taiwan until 2017. However these are merely superficial comparisons of course, given Yang’s ability to seamlessly make funny and tragic stories that are devoid of any sort of direct Spielbergian sentimentality, or overly manipulative music or editing. That's perhaps what I admire most about Yi Yi. With regards to Yang-Yang, I saw a lot of myself in him. I was surprised, with how little screen time the boy received, how much of a central impression he manages to make. It’s almost as if we encounter versions of himself, in every major character that we spend almost what feels like a lifetime with. NJ, Yang-Yang’s father, similarly, encounters possibilities. In the midst of two tumultuous events within the family, NJ is haunted and surrounded by his past, his childhood, and his future. He sees versions of himself, alternate lives, in a former lover, business opportunities, through his relatives, perhaps through fate, or chance. Perhaps we all do. Edward Yang’s characters are so easily relatable, the domestic struggles all resonate so vividly, the characters are so lifelike. What stood out most to me about Yi Yi from this first watch, is its interrogation of perspective. We see our characters confront their individual realities that are distinct yet interrelated. This is most literally embodied by Yang-Yang’s unique choice of portrait, the back of people’s heads which they don’t have the ability to see for themselves. Do you know what I want to do when I grow up? I want to tell people things they don't know. It feels rarely microscopic given the overwhelming number of characters, even though on paper it’s essentially about one Taiwanese family. I wouldn’t say I feel strongly toward any one character in this film, but despite this Yi Yi didn’t fail to be emotionally evocative, particularly in its final sequence, as well as NJ’s trip to Japan. Maybe this is what Edward Yang is good at, because it is when Yi Yi is most memorable, and most effective. Which is why I’m happy to say it left enough of a lasting impression on me to outshine my minor misgivings with it, and it is very much remembered by what it I thought it executed extremely well. A few days after, after my birthday passed, I decided to post this, I think back to Yang-Yang’s message to his grandmother that bookends the film. Edward Yang swiftly reinforces the idea of generational perspectives so succinctly, through the naïve, but not uncomplicated observations of youth. I want to tell him that I feel I am old, too.