Review of Yi Yi (2000) by Russell S — 04 Jan 2010

YI YI (84/100).

YI YI (84/100) ONE AND ONE, as it might be translated, is a good "slice of life" movie but also probably the most overrated film I've ever seen. I think a lot of the positive press it has gotten in the West comes from a kind of "National Geographic effect" in which viewers are able to see deeply into a culture that was previously opaque or unknown. The Taipei presented in this movie is so similar to Tokyo (in fact partially set and shot in Tokyo), both physically and culturally, I experienced no exotic insight. Admittedly, this movie is superior to similar Japanese movies--including the recently well-reviewed STILL WALKING (ARUITEMO ARUITEMO) and ADRIFT IN TOKYO (TEN TEN)--but it was often in the top ten movies of the decade and at least one reviewer recently called it "the best movie ever". I'm afraid I simply don't see it. A lot happens plot-wise in this movie, even though it feels like very little happens while watching it. In that sense, it is very realistic. On the other hand, at least a couple of the plot devices are gratuitous and heavy-handed.

While the plot is perhaps a bit clumsy, it serves to illuminate the characters. The most interesting thing about the movie is the roundness to the characters. Instead of the movie being about change causing the characters to develop, as is the standard trope in narrative film, this movie is about characters maintaining the equilibrium of their identity despite the impact of events. They are like buoys that constantly right themselves despite the churning of the sea of change around them. The movie is prone to a bit of nape gazing--nape rather than navel due to the metaphoric pursuit of the artist as an elementary student in the film. His epistemic musing that we can only know half there is to know is too clever by as much but he does hand us the central theme of the movie like a framed photograph: we can only know half--not just of others and their situation but even of ourselves. And that brings us full circle, from wedding through birth to funeral, as we put one and one together in the end.