| Recently selected by the Hong Kong Film Awards as the Best Chinese movie ever, this Mainland China drama shot in 1948 didn't gain much of a recognition at the time of release and director Fei Mu received such a critical backlash, based on the politics apparently woven into this story , that he left for Hong Kong and never made a film again. Subsequently, during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the film was banned but it sprung to life many, many years later when a print was made available in the 80s. But in the new millennium, despite beaten up print elements, Fei Mu's Spring In A Small Town has finally gained its due recognition.
Set in a post-war small Chinese village, director Fei slowly but assuredly sets up the small character gallery. Yuwen (Wei Wei) is a devoted wife to Liyan (Shi Yu) who has been struck with heart disease ever since their initial steps into marriage. It's not a foundation built on love or happiness but out of duty. A sister (Dai Xiou) and a servant (Cui Chaoming) also has a place in their daily lives. Into their routine bound lives comes a childhood friend of both Yuwen and Liyan's. He is Wei (Zhang Zhicheng), now a doctor and the first meeting in 10 years sparks a quiet rivalry between the two men over the woman...
Spring In A Small Town is a tale where there exist secondary characters that therefore receive less attention but the structure calls for that and does not hinder any intentions of Li Nianji's screenplay. Possibly written very sparsely as Li clearly wants to favor subtlety, Fei Mu comes through strikingly well when it comes to this task. It's an intense story despite the measured pace where Fei brings fine, subtle nuances to all the stages characters goes through. Jealously, rejection, shame, self-realization, it's all here and each one naturally and in a compelling, even haunting way flows into one another. The spring setting feels highly ironic also as the movie contains inner turmoils that threatens to escalate into unheard of darkness for the characters.
When all's said and done, Spring in A Small Town is probably is too stagy for all viewers to actually pick up on the powerful characteristics that is injected via Fei Mu into the performers. Also, while it's clearly greatly executed, its selection by the Hong Kong Film Awards may mean that it's always struck a chord with Chinese and Hong Kong audiences more than it does with outside eyes. It may also very well mean that I'm too thick to get the entire picture. Nevertheless, Spring In A Small Town is an old gem that proves to have staying power even in 2005. If that's not worth a high grade, I don't know what is. A remake was shot in the Mainland during 2003, bearing the title Springtime In A Small Town. |
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