💐 To honor the memory of the late Bill Kennedy—Seattle’s sweetest and most dedicated regular at cinemas citywide—Grand Illusion Cinema, Northwest Film Forum, and The Beacon have each dedicated screenings in his name this season. To match his preternatural good nature and grace, as well as his profound attunement to the human spirit through the silver screen, Chris selected Yi Yi for our screening. 💐

The extraordinary, internationally embraced Yi Yi (A One and a Two…), directed by the late Taiwanese master Edward Yang, follows a middle-class family in Taipei over the course of one year, beginning with a wedding and ending with a funeral. Whether chronicling middle-age father NJ’s tentative flirtations with an old flame or precocious young son Yang-Yang’s attempts at capturing reality with his beloved camera, the filmmaker deftly imbues every gorgeous frame with a compassionate clarity. Warm, sprawling, and dazzling, this intimate epic is one of the undisputed masterworks of the new century.

(Edward Yang, Taiwan, 2000, 173 min, in Mandarin, Min Nan, Hokkien, English, Japanese & French with English subtitles)
Film description and images courtesy of Janus Films.