Three essays on a child photographing what people cannot see of themselves, an adult whose days are filled with decisions he did not make, and a family able to speak honestly only to a grandmother who cannot answer.
Yi Yi begins with a wedding and ends with a funeral, but its structure is less a circle than a collection of partial views. Yang-Yang’s photographs of the backs of heads state Edward Yang’s method: every person needs somebody else to reveal what remains outside his own field of vision.
The adult problem is not inactivity. Everyone is busy. The problem is that busyness can fill years without producing a life one can narrate as one’s own. Ota, the Japanese game designer, offers a contrast—not because his days are easy, but because his activities remain authored.
Edward Yang’s 2000 film Yi Yi. Full-film spoilers throughout.
Yang-Yang photographs the half of other people they cannot see, turning a child’s experiment into the film’s method of reciprocal vision.
NJ crosses Tokyo and revisits a lost love, yet returns unchanged; Ota’s magic, music, and work embody activity that remains his own.
An unconscious grandmother becomes the family’s only listener, revealing how full days can leave almost nothing a person recognizes as worth telling.
三篇从一个孩子拍下别人看不见的自己，读到一个成年人怎样过满了并非自己决定的日子，以及一家人为何只能对着无法回答的婆婆说出真话。
《一一》从婚礼开始，以葬礼结束；它的结构与其说是圆，不如说是一组彼此不完整的视角。洋洋拍摄后脑勺，正是杨德昌的方法：每个人都需要另一个人替自己看见视野以外的部分。
成年人面对的问题并非无所事事，恰恰是每个人都很忙。问题在于，忙碌可以填满多年，却无法形成一段能被自己讲述为“我的”的生活。日本游戏设计者大田提供了对照，不是因为日子轻松，而是因为他的活动仍由自己创作。
杨德昌二〇〇〇年《一一》。全片剧透。