favorite films

Springtime in a Small Town

Chinese with English subtitles

Director: Tian Zhuang Zhuang (The Blue Kite)

Actors: Wu Jun, Hu Jing Fan, Xin Bo Qing

Loneliness, longing and despair—these emotions are magnified in the house of Dai Liyan when his boyhood friend, Zhang Zhichen, returns to their small town. World War II has recently ended and Zhichen and Liyan have not seen each other for 10 years. Zhichen has become a doctor and followed the path of the War of Resistance during the Japanese occupation. Liyan has returned from Chongqing to his family’s nearly-destroyed home. As the eldest son of deceased parents, he is responsible for the home’s care, and there he lives with his wife, Yuwen, his younger sister, Xiu, and a servant, Old Huang.

Yuwen and Liyan’s marriage, an arranged one, has suffered over the years, and they no longer share a room. Liyan believes his health to be poor, and seems to believe his illness is a reason for the distance in his marriage. When his boyhood friend returns, he must confront these issues in a way that he hasn’t in the past. What he learns soon after Zhichen arrives is that Zhichen and Yuwen know each other. We learn that they had a relationship before Zhichen left, and Yuwen has forced her feelings for Liyan and buried those for Zhichen since. When he returns, the repressed feelings of Yuwen push to the surface, but the deep affection that both she and Zhichen feel for Liyan contribute to intense guilt. Each of these three characters suffers from incredibly strong emotions and seems totally unsure of what to do with them.

The director tightly controls the movie to create the emotional tenseness. He uses a slow pace to make the audience feel the boredom and restraint that have become a part of Yuwen and Liyan’s life. The backdrop for the movie is the ruined family home and a crumbling old city wall, and except for one brief dance scene at Xiu’s school, the movie shows only the five characters. These contribute to the feelings of loneliness and despair felt by the main characters. Finally, the characters of Old Huang and especially Xiu provide a contrast to the emotional repression of the other three characters.

This is a remake of a classic Chinese movie filmed in the 1940’s. It is well crafted and a movie of great depth. Like truly good movies, it leaves one wondering about the lives of the characters long after the final scene ends.