The Child with His Camera: Mimetic Experiences in Edward Yang's Yi Yi

10.6153/EXP.202012_(44).0004

Paul Fung

childhood ； mimesis ； Edward Yang ； Yi Yi ； Theodor W. Adorno ； Walter Benjamin

Ex-position

44期（2020 / 12 / 01）

81 - 102

英文

This article traces the development of the character Yang-Yang in Edward Yang's last film, Yi Yi, showing that the child's strange behavior can be helpfully interpreted using the idea of mimesis as discussed by Theodor W. Adorno and Walter Benjamin. The child's mimetic practices are often misunderstood by the adults in the film, mainly because they have repressed their own compulsion to imitate others. However, the child's mimetic impulse should not be disparaged as a mere tendency to indulge in childish pranks. On the contrary, this impulse forms the basis of aesthetic experience and, more importantly, opposes a culture built on the coercive human mastery of nature. Amid a de-individualising and profit-oriented Taipei, where most adults suffer from a poverty of experience, the child's mimesis has redemptive implications.

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