Spring in a Small Town (1948)
Director: Fei Mu
A motion picture that was long discarded due to communist
politics, Spring in a Small Town
would in time re-emerge as one of the greatest films in the history of Chinese
cinema decades later. A picture of minimalist means, its story continues to
evoke emotion that allows it to touch modern audiences. In a brief era where the
nation was shifting itself comes a masterful piece of cinema that transcends
its time and boundaries, manifesting the power of motion pictures.
Spring in a Small Town
is a Chinese romantic drama about a lonely housewife whose life is altered when
an old lover re-enters her life. In post World War II China Zhou Yuwen (Wei Wei)
finds herself in a loveless marriage serving a long-suffering ill husband, Dani
Liyan (Yu Shi). The emotionally distancing of Liyan from his wife is mirrored
by their lives in the once prosperous, but now crumbling, war scarred home
where there relationship has long been deteriorating. Liyan begins to receive
care from an old childhood friend and doctor, Zhichen (Li Wei), however Zhichen
happens to be an ex-lover of Yuwen from long before she and Liyan first met, secretly
rekindling a romance. A love triangle grows as Yuwen becomes torn between her feelings
for Zhichen and her loyalty to Liyan, when revealed drives Liyan to attempt
suicide. Zhichen saves his friend’s life and further so the marriage by deciding
to remove himself from Yuman and Liyan where they begin to patch up their relationship.
For a film shot on a simple level with minimal sets and a nominal
cast, its story takes a deep dive into the emotion conflict within an
individual’s minds between love, romance, envy, regret, loyalty, friendship,
and guilt. Spring in a Small Town is
a humble movie that despite being made many decades ago in a country that for
many of those years did not appreciate its artistry, it came to be a movie that
speaks to film viewers today. It lacks extravagance. It even lacks any sign of
cinematically technical significance. What it does do best is deliver a
compelling story. This movie proves that even from a country on the other side
of the world from Hollywood can still come a film just as gripping as any, and
would receive its due respect with the passage of time.
In the years directly after World War II with China
recovering from the bombardment by Japan, the nation was still discovering what
its place would be in the world and how they will govern themselves in the
coming years after a such a major international conflict that forever changed
the world. With the rise of Communism on the horizon the Chinese people were on
the brink of significant change, but here we see a time of artistic freedom
before many rights of the nation’s citizens were to be altered. Filmmaker Fei
Mu was a Shanghai native who rose to become a director studying under the
Chinese pioneers of cinema. His style and artistry made him one of the finest
Chinese directors of his day, and a leader in an industry whose days were
numbered.
In Spring in a Small
Town Mu takes the opportunity to showcase a drama set within the real life
struggles of many Chinese people’s feeling the effects of the Japanese
destruction of their homeland. Beyond its interesting look at this part of the
world during this time in history, the story shared is relatable as an
emotional tale about relationships, the changing states of love, and its ability
to bring both joy and sorrow. This story could be shared in any language in any
setting and the way that it is shared here with within a minimal setting,
around one house, with only a cast of five characters, making it easy to follow
and translate into any viewer’s mind. Mu’s filmmaking style is simple, but
speaks volumes with emotional acting, framing, use of shadows, along with its
well written script.
As mentioned, the film only featured a cast of five actors. Wei
Wei was a 26 year old actress that carries the bulk of the picture as Yuwen,
the wife torn between her loyalty to a suffering marriage and the chance to
rekindle a romance from long ago. Her performance is powerful, beginning as a
meek housewife of a loveless marriage before being slowly seduced by her
memories when Zhichen arrive. Li Wei plays Zhichen, the lover that knows what
is best, but questions if he too should take the opportunity to run away with
his former lover, alienating his sick childhood friend in the process before
making the right decision. Yu Shi has the difficult task of playing the sick
husband that is far from desirable at the onset of the picture, portrayed as an
ungrateful, depressed burden, but comes to realize he needs to love more as he
mends from his illness, climaxing in a gesture of great sadness as he attempts
to take his own life when he discovers he may being losing his wife to his
friend.
The side characters of Dai, Liyan’s teenage sister portrayed
by Zhang Hongmei, and the house servant Huang, played by Cui Chaoming, may not
be part of the love triangle, but do establish the world the story is set in.
The character of Huang allows us to see how Yuwen and Liyan were once
prosperous and now live in need for his care. Huang’s presence depresses Liyan of
how great his family once was, and how low and ill he has become. Dai as Liyan’s
much younger sister has grown up not remembering the prosperity of Liyan’s lamentations.
Her character shares a joy of innocence, manifesting how one can be happy in this
setting when not measuring their lives against the perspective of a more
prosperous past.
Spring in a Small Town
was produced in a period when Shanghai filmmaking existed outside of the
communist Chinese government. In the years to come the Communist regime would
impose their strict control over society and the arts, limited its practice and
distribution. Upon the film’s release the audiences were heavily limited. The
Communist Party would suppress the picture and director Fei Mu, as well as many
other artists in China at the time, fled to Hong Kong avoiding the communist
rule. The conservative members of the party found Spring in a Small Town too liberal in its thinking and against the
Communist message for society, effectively burying the picture from existing.
After 1949 Spring in
Small Town would be nearly lost as a motion picture. However, in the early 1980s
with the reopening of the China Film Archives a print of the film was unearthed
and restored. As a discovery among the renewed Chinese film community Spring in a Small Town gathered great
admiration in filmmaking and story telling, raising it to a state as one of, if
not the very best films in all of Chinese film history.
A 2002 remake of the picture, known as Springtime in a Small Town in the English speaking world despite
having the same Chinese title, was released to positive reviews. Even with the
advent of modern filmmaking film historians tend to favor the original picture
despite its deteriorated and aged state. Fans primarily of films from the
western world may be surprised by how well concieved Spring in a Small Town is, and how similar it may be to story
quality they are use to. Spring in a
Small Town is easily one of the finest examples of simple filmmaking at its
best, capturing with it a time in China’s history while sharing a sad romantic
story.
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