“Yi Yi” is a sensitive and uplifting drama about life as seen through the eyes of each member of a middle-class Taiwanese family. Capturing both the mundane and profound, the film focuses on each member’s personal story while also illuminating the larger canvas of contemporary Taipei society.
Working with a slow, lingering pace and harnessing the power of silence to convey truth, director Edward Yang produces a compelling tale of love, friendship and the quest to discover life’s meaning. At the center of the story is NJ, a despondent computer executive who finds his work life unfulfilling and his personal life fraught with crises: his mother-in-law falls into a coma, his wife suffers a spiritual breakdown and he reconnects with his former fiancee. At the same time his teenage daughter befriends a next-door neighbor and experiences the pangs of first love while his 8-year old son takes up photography, capturing pictures of the backs of people’s heads in order to show them something they haven’t seen before.
Although the film runs almost 3 hours, it’s never boring. With interesting characters and subtle acting performances, “Yi Yi” rewards the viewer with insightful and resonant observations about life, in all its wonder and weirdness.
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