Wednesday, 2 June 2010

Yi Yi: A One and a Two


















Yi Yi: A One and a Two (2000)
a film by Edward Yang

I had no idea about this film until I found it on the list. Even being so recent it didn't cross in my way until now, and now that I know it references to it appear everywhere and it continues growing on me as a simple and beautiful story of characters that feel very close as if they had been living next door without me noticing.

It is easy to use the words personal and intimate when describing this film but I think what really describes would be something more like the magic in the quotidian. The stories of all the characters that meet in this film mix and follow their own paths in quotidian life but are so diverse and interesting that the feeling that is delivered was that of an afternoon hearing family stories and I really liked it because it felt homey and it look beautiful without leaving what one can think as regular life.

In the beginning of the movie I didn't feel comfortable with the digital images that at first glimpse I found cheap but they started to grow on me as the moving and the characters developed and I surrender to the beauty and simplicity of the takes, I take home the photographs taken by the kid and the scenes of the dad smoking in a hotel room saturated in blue. The dad and the kid were also my favourite characters, but is hard to separate them for the real character of the movie that is the family itself.

It is really hard to describe the soft but deep feelings that this movie produced on me without falling in common places, but what I can say is that it is a great portrait of life that linger after is over, it is entertaining and moving, I felt swimming in it and going deeper until I was immersed in the story and then the feeling followed me after it was over. For me it was like drinking a hot cup of tea in a really cold day, and that sounds really cheese, I know, but trust me you won't see this one coming and then you will fall in love with it.

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