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Yi Yi
Edward Yang, Taiwan, 2000; 173 mins.
In this autobiographically-flavored
labor of love, director Edward Yang uses music as a subtly-recurring motif in
suggesting how individual human beings manage to live with one another. The
setting is newly-globalized Taiwan, where life seems to have transformed from
simple and ordered to complex and kinetic in a single generation - at least
to Grandma, who wearies of trying to make sense of the world her
thoroughly-modern family bounces around in. Yet the wondrous thing about
this film is how Yang touches that core of essential humanity which exists
even among fragmenting urbanites. Taking his title from a familiar intro to
a musical performance, the director explores how individuals relate to
themselves and to others best by finding or staying connected to some
essential human harmony that we lose touch with all to easily in our busy
world. In this long film we get to know well several members of the Jian
family as they pass together and alone through assorted and universal
landmarks of life, facing challenges that resonate across the generations and
powerfully in the viewer. Like his miniature onscreen altar-ego, impish
little Yang-Yang, the director shows us a part of ourselves that we can't see
ourselves, but need to be reminded of often in order to be true to what is
best in us. A bittersweet and immensely-rewarding symphony of life and its
eternal rhythms.
Yi Yi
is part of "Great Awakenings" track of the Featured Screenings program at Flickerings at Cornerstone Festival,
July 1-4, 2004.See complete Schedule
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