Yang-Yang: Daddy, I can’t see what you see and you can’t see what I see. How can I know what you see?

NJ: Good question, I never thought of that. That is why we need a camera. Do you want to play with one?

Yang-Yang: Daddy, can we know only half of the truth?

NJ: What? I don’t get it.

Yang-Yang: I can only see what’s in front, not what’s behind. So I can only know half of the truth, right?

Normally, I start off at the beginning of a movie and move through it a scene at a time, but I feel the need with “Yi Yi” to do a little Kieslowski-like flash forwarding. This little conversation between Yang-Yang and his father is important framing for everything we see in the film. It comes roughly an hour into the film.

The conversation is important because what we are watching is a movie, something created with a camera. And this camera has a limitation — it can only show you one perspective at a time, at least in the way we typically view cinema.

Edward Yang challenges that solo perspective throughout his film. He uses reflective surfaces throughout to expand how we see the scenes. Sometimes it gives us two views of a character at once. Sometimes it let the streetscape enter the action. But the main thing Yang is doing is challenging the idea that there is one singular answer in every scene, one thing that the director forces you to look at, for you to accept as the ultimate truth.

“Yi Yi” is not a movie about ultimate truths. It’s a film about lived experience and how often our perceptions fail us, our memories deceive us, and our lack of trust in the simplest things leads us into traps that make us feel significantly less free than we are.

The film centers around a family, but one of the most important lines in the film is delivered by a side character — a businessman and video game creator who notes that every day we wake up and start anew. No two days are alike, we start fresh with each new day. And we do so without fear. So, why are we so cautious so much of the time?

This character is making a case for an artistic rather than business-like approach to life. Edward Yang, who spent his early career working for the tech industry as a computer engineer in Seattle, had a deep dislike for the corporate mindset. He believed that it made people afraid to take risks, it locked them into doing the same things over and over again. Only by leaving that world behind and becoming an artist did Yang fully feel alive — even if he had to watch so many of his former friends and colleagues become extremely rich.

These two philosophical concepts — that truth lies in various perspectives, and that life by its very nature aims toward embracing challenges — are apparent throughout the film, but not immediately spelled out as we begin watching “Yi Yi.”

We are dropped into this film at a family wedding, not knowing anything about anyone. We see a couple being married — the bride is clearly very pregnant — and we hear a baby crying the background. If we look closely, we can actually see that baby in the far right of the frame. Make that, we can see the back of the baby’s head.

That’s another important motif in “Yi Yi,” the back of the head. I’m going to assign a meaning to it that I’m not claiming Edward Yang intended — nor am I insisting that this interpretation is true. But it feels to me that when the film reveals someone from the back, we are getting a glimpse of their soul.

And so this baby, just recently born, the center of this little world’s attention, is now present at a ceremony where another baby is featured. The stage is about to be ceded to this child. And so this baby is making sure to be heard one last time, with everyone present.

We fade out and then back in to a picture of the family walking outside after the wedding, in a very long, static shot. They are headed to stairs where a group picture will be taken. The picture scene is dominated by a group of four young girls who decide to tease their young little cousin Yang-Yang in a manner typical of little girls — tapping him on the shoulder repeatedly, pretending it’s not them.

Three of the girls take turns doing this. Yang-Yang innocently plays along each time. This is Yang-Yang’s first experience with a camera in the film, and it’s interesting how the back of his head is being disturbed, keeping him from playing his role as the front-and-center subject in this family portrait.

There’s another, smaller family photo. We notice the couple NJ and his wife Min-Min not in the picture, walking up to the group after it’s taken. We then find out that Min-Min is the sister of the groom, A-Di. Then, we see Yang-Yang approach his older sister Ting-Ting. She then approaches her grandmother, who is never referred to by name in the film, but who is a central character throughout. She tries to give her a flower from the tree, but notices something is off about her. Ting-Ting seems to have an extremely close relationship with her grandmother.

This is the core group of characters we will follow for the next three hours.

The next shot is one of the most iconic images of “Yi Yi,” featuring Yang-Yang at the site of the wedding reception as pink balloons are being put into place.

The scene then cuts to a woman crashing the reception in search of the grandmother. Several people ask what she is doing there — she asks them to mind her business. Ting-Ting recognizes her and approaches. The woman, Yun-Yun, softens when she sees Ting-Ting. A running theme throughout the film is how empathetic Ting-Ting is … her innocence is a critical plot point in the film.

Ting-Ting brings this woman to her grandmother … which leads to an emotional scene. Yun-Yun breaks down and apologizes to the grandmother for not being the woman marrying her son that day. We get a bit of indirect backstory in this confrontation — Yun-Yun was A-Di’s girlfriend, but he got another woman pregnant and is now marrying her. It’s a very aggressive move for Yun-Yun to be underlining this point on the wedding day, and right after this confrontation, the grandmother, who at first says “where is that pregnant bitch?” decides that she’s seen enough of it and lets Ting-Ting know that she’d like to go home.

This all happens in the few minutes before the film’s credits roll. As the credits begin, we hear Yun-Yun yelling “give me my A-Di back!” accentuating one of the most comic situations of the film — how sought out A-Di is despite the fact that he’s overweight, always in debt and bounces from one crisis to another throughout the film. Oh, and he’s also obsessed with horoscopes and numerology.

We’re only a few minutes into the film, but this is already a lot for an opening essay. I’ll stop here as Ting-Ting is about to take her grandmother home, both of them skipping the reception.