So, here's a paper I wrote...

for my New Asian Cinemas class. It was only 3 pages, so I tend to make some sweeping generalities that would benefit from clarification, but I thought it could trigger some good conversation about this wonderful film. (But then again, it is 3 pages so don't freak out about the length of the post).

Yi Yi is, without a doubt, a powerhouse film that depicts a tapestry of relationships and events that all form a complex emotional journey for every character in the film, which extends to the audience itself. While some may argue that the family in this film is dysfunctional, it seems that they actually complement each other quite well. While each family member has his or her own flaws, and sometimes these flaws negatively impact each other, they are all on the path to their own emotional transformation and eventually come to support each other. The transformation that each individual undergoes is essential to who they are and who they will become, and the journeys they go through are their burden alone. Too much involvement from the rest of the family would be overbearing and not enough involvement would create a lonely atmosphere. Conforming to the theory that each character is “one finger on a hand,” Yi Yi embodies the perfect mood and atmosphere for the characters to live and breathe in. Yang creates a dynamic, accurate family that seems dysfunctional on the surface, but is actually a functioning unit. On a larger scale, Yang is imploring us to see into these characters’ souls and draw out some semblance of a road map for our own lives.

NJ is supposed to be the leader of his family, however, he is the one who must undergo the largest transformation. The absence of leadership that he leaves behind paves the way for the rest of his family’s transformations. NJ must reconcile his romantic past with his present self, while Ting Ting must painstakingly navigate the perils of first love. Yang Yang has his own journey in order to uncover what can’t be seen, and even has a small love story of his own. Min Min’s journey, the least emphasized in the film, mirrors segments of NJ’s journey in that her guru is a failed version of NJ’s Ota, but they both ultimately teach the same lesson, if in opposite ways.

It is fascinating how each storyline could seamlessly be part of the same person’s life. Yang Yang is experiencing the pangs of first crush, while Ting Ting is experiencing the pangs of first love. On the opposite end of the spectrum, NJ is reminiscing about his own first love and exploring what could have been. Min Min’s love for her life and family is so jumbled and convoluted that she must go away in order to make some sense of it. It is wonderful how well each of these stories is juxtaposed, both visually and emotionally. The function of this family is almost metaphorically represented through the actions of each individual. They are all experiencing different segments of the same problem, and can then relate to one another, although this relation is never actually vocalized between them.

As NJ is reliving his first date with Sherry, Ting Ting is actually experiencing her first date with Fatty. The sound bridges in this scene are quite poignant and contribute to the overall feeling of interconnectedness that pervades the film. As NJ mentions his sweaty palms and the anxiety that went with holding Sherry’s hand, we are treated to a parallel shot of Fatty timidly latching onto Ting Ting’s hand as they wait to cross the street. NJ’s narration, in combination with the first date, creates a tragically beautiful depiction of first love. By showing NJ’s failure, Yang is foreshadowing Ting Ting’s failed relationship with Fatty, but by revealing NJ’s eventual reconciliation with his own relationship, we are not completely disheartened by Ting Ting’s future. The family’s function comes through for the audience, but not for the family itself.

Yang also seems to be making some grandiose statements about the nature of love in our universe. Upon seeing up the skirt of his teacher’s daughter, Yang Yang experiences his first crush. As this girl enters the room, Yang Yang cannot take his eyes off of her and neither can the audience. She is framed so uniquely against the large screen depicting a particularly violent thunderstorm, as lightning brilliantly illuminates her, if only for a second, all the while a narration speaks about how a flash of lightning is thought to have sparked the first amino acid into existence, and, thus, created life. Yang is certainly making a bold statement here: that life and love are not mutually exclusive, and cannot, in fact, exist without each other. Perhaps this is the closest we will come to a definitive goal of the film.

In life, there is also death, and it is this fact that inevitably brings the family back together. They are all different people than they were at the beginning of the film. The magic-realist moment between Ting Ting and her grandmother is also a symbol that the grandmother has been watching over every member of the family. Their journeys did not begin until the initial peripeteia of the grandmother’s stroke, and their journeys were not completed until the grandmother’s death. It is as if she had been watching over each character for the entire film, guiding them to their epiphanies. The grandmother is also the key to the overall function of the family unit, and without her as a rallying point for them; the characters are at risk of aimlessly drifting through their own personal dilemmas. The grandmother’s death allows for the family’s drift back together, its reconciliation, and eventual realization that family is the one constant they have in their lives.

In Yi Yi, Yang leads us on a trip through the minds of humans. He has carefully constructed characters that can easily be labeled as “human.” They have transcended the world of the screen into the audience’s mind. In so doing he has tasked us with the colossal burden of taking these people into our own psyche and learning as much as we can from them. The apparent dysfunction and eventual function of this family unit attests to the fact that as humans, we can move on, we can push through. No matter what happens, knowledge will be passed down, and the drive to better the world will remain, as evidenced by Yang Yang’s final monologue at his grandmother’s funeral. Perhaps Edward Yang’s final message is uncharacteristically sentimental, but it is so eloquently expressed that its worth transcends that of sentimentality to become a sincere expression of what he sees as the truth of the world and the inevitable realization that we are all connected. It is fitting, then, that Yi Yi is Edward Yang’s swan song.