Review of Yi Yi (2000) by Andrew D — 12 Aug 2013

The film Yi Yi takes a unique stance on the meaning of life by focusing on the life events of the Jian family. The father NJ, is a businessman who is trying desperately to think of a plan to keep the company he belongs to a float. During the wedding of his brother in law, NJ encounters his first love Sherry. Conflict arises when the grandmother slips into a coma. This causes NJ's wife Min-Min to question her role in the family. NJ and Min- Min's five year old son Yang-Yang is the most distant member of the family. He has to deal with a chaotic teacher and a bunch of really irritating girls, which at times provide elements of much needed comedy relief. The subplot of NJ and Min-Min's teenage daughter Ting-Ting, who has to deal with the new romantic feelings for a local boy is rather boring and should have been cut out of the film, as it is an unnecessary and takes away focus from other characters.

I do recognise that Edward Yang was trying to break the conventional traditional of the narrative and for that I have no objection. However the messy structure he adopted hampered each individual character's story by changing character focus too many times and in some case not coming back to a character for over 45 minutes e.g. the grandmother in a coma.

The scenes that stands out the most for me is where NJ talks with Otta about life and business, especially the scene near the end of the film where Otta uses a deck of cards to explain about life. I would have appreciated the film more if they had focused more on the father (NJ) and son (Yang-Yang). The biggest gripe I have with this film is its length. As mentioned before the film has too many subplots and is why the film goes for 3 hours, too long; The trimming of certain scenes where there is no action or story progression happening e.g. Ting-Ting and another girl in a hallway just staring at each other. These editing alterations would not take away from the story's message of life, but enrich it.

I enjoyed most of the cinematography of the film. Edward Yang successfully captured the characters movement and their disconnection to their surrounding environment by the use of wide shots. He was able to us the mis en scene of the metropolis such as the city skyline in combination with reflective glass; and traffic to represent the isolation and distant thinking of the characters. I did find that some of the wide shots used, such as the cafe scene were uncomfortable, as they made me feel distant from the characters discussion. Although it did make me want to be drawn in to the discussion which I guess was one of the goals of Edward Yang.