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Springtime in a Small Town
Directed by Zhuangzhuang Tian
Set almost entirely in a house nested in the heart of a devastated Chinese village, Springtime in a Small Town tells the story of a love triangle between Zhang (Bai Qing Xin), a young doctor, his best friend Liyan (Jun Wu) and the latter's wife Yuwen (Jingfan Hu), who used to be Zhang's high school sweetheart. The presence of Liyan's 16-year-old sister Xiu (Si Si Lu) embodies the forbidden fruit as she not only goes after Zhang but also reminds him of Yuwen a few years back.
With only a handful of characters, a bare setting and an almost contemplative pace, Springtime in a Small Town resembles a play, which wouldn't be a good thing—at least for me—as I dread theater for its lack of visual appeal and dimension. Fortunately—and probably the result of an artistic choice as much as a way to balance the minimalism of the ensemble—the film is enveloped in the gorgeous cinematography of Pin Bing Lee, the man responsible for visual treats such as In the Mood for Love and Millenium Mambo. From the first shot of Yuwen sewing in front of a window to the use of shadows, angles and space, Springtime in a Small Town looks like a painted landscape that you can admire for its beauty without really being able to penetrate it.
While the film functions as a psychological study, looking closely at the interactions between the 4 main characters, the absence of a real story and a moral ending that officiates as a new beginning assimilates Springtime in a Small Town into an old-fashioned melodrama whose roots seem to be in the late 19th - early 20th centuries; and the scene where the four characters are on a small boat, singing an aria from an operetta, seems to confirm this idea.
For the follow-up of his more frontal political piece, The Blue Kite, which got him banned in China—thus the 9-year hiatus between the two movies—director Zhuangzhuang Tian seems to have softened his approach, replacing criticism (of China) with a subtle but somewhat superficial love story. The fact that Springtime in a Small Town is a remake of a 1948 picture that angered the Communist party at the time not only explains the overall outdated tone of the picture but also suggests that filmmaker has this time chosen to continue his crusade behind the mask of filmmaking normality. Some might see in the story of these characters a metaphor for the current state of China, but to the eyes of the neophyte, Springtime in a Small Town can't transcend its own apparent inertia.
Fred Thom
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Springtime in a Small Town review
