Yi Yi, or A One and a Two…

Tom's Recommended Film of The Week

Yi Yi, or A One and a Two...

Yi Yi
is a sweeping saga of life within a modern Taiwanese family and their extended friendships. Honor, character, love, hopes and desires mesh to form a tight net which keeps these peoples lives bound within their self enforced societal convention. Flashes of temper, anguish, love and denile burst from this slowly paced film to illustrate the gradual nature of the progress of living.

A long film of nearly three hours, Yi Yi can get pretty slow at times, but the moments of clarity realized by several of the central characters are stunning in their simplicity. As we look back at our own lives we can all see the stress points and the clear sailing, though at the time our understanding of the implications may be limited. This film allows us to see the same river of developement in a vastly different culture, with clarity, compassion and understanding. Director Edward Yang has given the world a glimse of human nature struggling to explode from cultural restraints and in so doing has created a subtle and engaging masterpiece.