Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000)

by Elena Lazic

From the very first shots of Yi Yi, Edward Yang’s control of his images is evident. He does not cut away from long takes when one would expect him to, nor does he follow up a long shot with the kind of close-up most filmmakers would use to punctuate a conversation between characters. These choices do jump out at the viewer at first, but it is quickly apparent that Yang’s filmmaking isn’t unusual simply for the sake of it, and his style only rarely brings attention to itself. As beautiful (and screenshot-friendly) as his compositions are, what struck me about them was how they never stood alone. At any one moment in the film, there are always several things going on at the same time, several tensions at play, several reasons why a certain image is composed the way it is.