On the taxi ride back to the family apartment, the grandmother at first looks pleased, happy to have escaped the chaos. But the camera stays on her and her expression subtly changes to something more melancholy.

This is a feature of Yang’s method — he likes to give actors very long takes, allowing them to bring depth to their performances. A more dictatorial director might have just cut the shot right at the grandmother’s smile.

As the taxi pulls up to the Taipei apartment building, we notice a moving truck. New neighbors are moving in right next door. The next shot is of a black and white surveillance monitor in the lobby of the building, showing Ting-Ting and her grandmother. The next cut is to another such monitor, this one inside their apartment — so we get a small glimpse of the place even before they step in.

Edward Yang loves to populate his films with different devices to witness the action. I can only imagine what he might have done with all of the screens available for use today.

What’s very strange is that their apartment has not one, but two closed-circuit monitors of the front door and the elevator. That’s a high level of security consciousness — does anyone really need to see what’s going on at the front door and the elevator at all times?

That second monitor catches a glimpse of a young man who will become another important character in the film — someone who starts out as the boyfriend of a teenaged girl moving in next door, but who will later become Ting-Ting’s first love interest. He has one more piece of importance to the plot that I’ll save for later. At this moment, he’s trying to get in the front door without success.

That’s teenaged girl, Lili, runs into Ting-Ting and her grandmother as they get off the elevator. She is going down to meet her boyfriend and apologizes for the move-in mess. The family next door is named the Jiangs (while the family the film focuses on is named the Jians … awfully close in spelling and sound, if you ask me.)

The grandmother goes into her room and sits on her bed right away. Yang frames this shot so that you can see her in a slice of the screen, but also see a bit of the apartment and notice how lived-in it is. The camera pans, displaying quite a bit of clutter, and then we see N.J. enter through the front door.

Ting-Ting is already busy cleaning up around the apartment, but the first thing N.J. asks is for her to take out the garbage, that it is starting to smell. He notes that there is some on the balcony as well. After he finishes saying this, he looks through a desk drawer, stops himself, then wonders what it was he was looking for.

Ting-Ting takes the first bag of garbage down and she notices Lili with her boyfriend. The boyfriend is eager to see her — but we get the sense that Lili’s mother doesn’t like him. She suggests they go for the walk. Ting-Ting goes back upstairs.

Ting-Ting starts to gather garbage on the balcony. A phone rings — but it’s in the Jiangs’ house. Lili’s mother answers the phone and opens the window to her apartment. While she’s talking (about nothing terribly important) the camera cuts to a long shot of the teenaged lovers down below, walking into an embrace. Ting-Ting can witness all of this, and she must have become wrapped up in it somewhat.

This is because he father then calls out for her to come with him back to the wedding reception — and lost in her thoughts and the new direction from her father (Ting-Ting is one to always follow directions) she forgets about the garbage on the balcony that she was just collecting and goes to find him.

These seem like trivial details, but Edward Yang has a remarkable capacity for making little things pay off later in his story. “Yi Yi” is a move that rewards careful attention — and points out the ways we get distracted and lose focus on our purpose, moment to moment.