One of the first masterworks of the twenty-first century, Edward Yang’s YI YI is an at once epic and intimate portrait of a year in the life of a Taiwanese family. It is also, as Professor Jeff Smith argues in this edition of Observations on Film Art, a valentine to the transcendent possibilities of cinema. Exploring Yang’s subtly sophisticated use of framing, reflections, and the techniques of rear projection and superimposition, Smith reveals how the director uses these uniquely cinematic devices to draw our attention to the moments of ephemeral beauty that pass, almost unnoticed, across our everyday field of vision.