Rating: 5/5
Criterion Challenge 2023 | 3/52 | Made in Taiwan
Music makes me believe that life is beautiful.
I know you. You are his music.
The film follows the Jian family from a wedding to a funeral, giving us an extended glimpse into each of their lives for a brief time.
NJ, the father of the household, works for a video game company that is having financial problems. They reach out to Ota, a renowned video game developer, hoping to work with him. Ota suggests we don’t know ourselves as humans, and that we must keep striving for the new.
Why are we afraid of the first time? Everything in life is the first time. Every morning is new. We never live the same day twice. We’re never afraid of getting up every morning. Why?
Min-Min, the mother, is at a total loss when her mother has a stroke and goes into a coma. The doctors ask that she keep talking to her mother, giving her new information, and new patterns to latch onto. But Min-Min finds she can’t.
I have so little. How can it be so little? I live a blank! Every day… Every day… I’m like a fool! What am I doing every day?
Ting-Ting, the teenage daughter, worries that her disobedience caused her grandma’s stroke, begging her to wake up and forgive her. She befriends her neighbor Lili and becomes entangled in Lili’s love life and drama. To Ting-Ting, life feels so simple until it doesn’t.
— Life is a mixture of sad and happy things. Movies are so lifelike, that’s why we love them. — Then who needs movies? Just stay home and live life! — My uncle says, “We live three times as long since man invented movies.” — How can that be? — It means movies give us twice what we get from daily life.
Yang-Yang, the eight-year-old son, feels like he doesn’t have the words to tell his grandmother. How could he tell her anything when she knows more than him? Yang-Yang brings up his questions to his father, who suggests he try photography.
— Daddy, I can’t see what you see and you can’t see what I see. How can I know what you see? — Good question. I never thought of that. That’s why we need a camera. Do you want to play with one? — Daddy, can we only know half of the truth? … I can only see what’s in front, not what’s behind.
The film lives in stillness, letting the city environment swallow up the characters. The only non-diegetic music comes at the beginning and end of the movie — soft piano music from Kaili Peng, Edward Yang’s wife.
I’ve come to realize, things aren’t really that complicated. Why did they ever seem so?
Though sadness and questioning permeate each story, the film maintains a sliver of magic. Meeting the world with openness can lead to surprising moments of joy. We spend so much time in our past, reliving our regrets, and wishing for opportunities to do things differently. If the second chance comes, we might not need it after all. We are where we need to be.
Grandma, why is the world so different from what we thought it was?… Now, I close my eyes… the world I see is so beautiful.
This is a film that earns every minute of its 3-hour runtime. Everyone’s stories feel so vital, and by the end, they each close in such beautiful ways. I’m thankful for this movie coming into my life right now when I needed it. I lived a piece of other people’s lives, and I want to carry those lives with me.
Do you know what I want to do when I grow up? I want to tell people things they don’t know, show them stuff they haven’t seen. It’ll be so much fun.