A One and a Two…
Press Play to start
Theatrical Screenings
Online Availability
Additional Materials
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.
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
