A One and a Two…

Yi Yi
dir. Edward Yang
Taiwan, Japan 2000, 173’
subtitles: Polish and English

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Theatrical Screenings
St 19 Nov, 21:00
Muranów
Muranów
Tu 22 Nov, 20:30
Kinoteka 1
Kinoteka 1
Online Availability
16 Nov, 10:00 – 4 Dec
Additional Materials
Awards and festivals
World premiere: Cannes FF 2000 Cannes FF 2000 - Best Director Faro Island FF 2000 - Grand Jury Prize, FIPRESCI Prize Fribourg IFF 2000 - Grand Prix Karlovy Vary IFF 2000 - Netpac Award Vancouver IFF - Chief Dan George Humanitarian Award Sarajevo FF 2000 - Panorama Jury Prize Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards 2000 - Best Foreign Film New York Film Critics Circle Awards 2000 - Best Foreign Language Film National Society of Film Critics Awards, USA 2001 - Best Film
Credits
Taiwan, Japan 2000
Duration: 173’
director: Edward Yang
screenplay: Edward Yang
cinematography: Yang Wei-Han
editing: Chen Po-Wen
music: Peng Kai-Li
sound: Tu Duu-Chih
cast: Wu Nien-Jen, Elaine Jin, Issei Ogata, Kelly Lee
producer: Kubota Osamu, Chen Hsi-Sheng, Yu Weiyan
executive producer: Shinya Kawai
production: Atom Films, 1+2 Seisaku Iinkai
language: Hokkien, Mandarin, Japanese, English
colouration: colour
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Film description

A look at the everyday reality of a middle-class family in Taipei in-between two celebrations – a wedding and a funeral. The father, NJ, is having problems at work and is trying to sign a contract with a renown Japanese video game company. The teenage Ting Ting studies at one of the best high schools in Taipei, while her young brother Yang Yang is trying to cope with the senseless aggression he is being subjected to at school by both his peers and his teachers. When their beloved grandmother has an accident and falls into a coma, the family has to meet the previously invisible death head-on.

For Edward Yang, the ideal cinema offered the experience most akin to real life. A One and a Two fully realises this intention, creating a whole universe weaved of moments and gestures, emotions and sensations, small decisions that turn into groundbreaking life choices. The seemingly simple questions lead to long, subversive conversations. In his last film, Yang included the reflection on the film medium itself and the professional role of the filmmaker. Cinema and photography are a chance to show the invisible and become aware of the multitude of points of view, a unique opportunity to foster dialog. In A One and a Two, the director gives a nod to the viewers and welcomes them into his world for one last time.

text:
Maja Korbecka

Edward Yang

Born in 1947 in Shanghai. His father came from a southern province Guangdong, his mother from Hebei in the north of China. Born as the children of impoverished intelligentsia, they both worked as office clerks in the nationalist government structures. Two years after Yang was born, the communist party took over the reins in China, and the family moved to Taipei. Despite his fascination with literature and film, Yang chose to study engineering. After graduating, he moved to the US to continue his education in digital design. He spent seven years working as a coder in Seattle and then decided to return to Taiwan to pursue a career in film. In 1983, after creating his short film Desires, a part of an anthology film In Our Time, the founding oeuvre of the Taiwanese New Wave, Yang directed his almost three-hour-long debut That Day, on the Beach. Over the three decades of his career, Yang made a wide variety of films. His third feature, a postmodern tragicomedy Terrorizers, was a big box office success and a hit among the critics, bringing Yang the 1987 Silver Leopard at the festival in Locarno, and the title of the Best Film at the Golden Horse Film Awards. Yang’s later films – the award-winning, epic reconstruction of Taipei of the 1960s, A Brighter Summer Day, the comedy A Confucian Confusion, and the gangster film Mahjong – turned out to be box office flops. Yang’s last film, the Japanese co-production A One, and a Two, brought him the Best Director award at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. After the Cannes win, Yang started working on several different projects – the animation The Wind, a website with auteur comic books Miluku.com, and the script for the adaptation of Lust, Caution, but did not finish any of them. Yang died of colon cancer in California in 2007.

Selected filmography:

1982 W naszym czasie / Guangyin de gushi / In Our Time (segment Oczekiwanie / Zhiwang / Expectation)

1983 Tego dnia na plaży / Haitan de yi tian / That Day, on the Beach

1985 Historia z Tajpej / Qingmei zhuma / Taipei Story

1986 Terroryści / Kongbu fenzi / Terrorizers

1991 Jasny dzień lata / Gulingjie shaonian sharen shijian / A Brighter Summer Day

1994 Konfucjańska konsternacja / Duli shidai / A Confucian Confusion

2000 I raz, i dwa / Yi Yi / A One and a Two

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