200: Spring in a Small Town

Lǐ Tiānjì

China  93m  Dir: Fei Mu

Spring in a Small Town is often considered as being China's greatest film and that's hugely impressive given it was made on a tight budget and consists of a cast of only five people. 

In a small town in the Jiangnan region of China, Yuwen (Wei Wei) is living in an unhappy marriage with her husband Liyan (Shi Yu). Liyan is ill and depressed and Yuwen is miserable but remains a dutiful wife. The only member of the household who is happy is Liyan's younger sister Xiu (Zhang Hongmei). One day Liyan's childhood friend Zhang Zhichen (Li Wei) arrives and by co-incidence was also once in a relationship with Yuwen. During Zhichen's stay he and Yuwen grow ever closer whilst remaining conflicted about whether they should give into their feelings. 

The complicated love story is really well done. You quickly feel Zhichen's romantic feelings for Yuwen but it takes a little longer before we see Yuwen start to show romantic feelings back. There's a great conflict in these characters being head-over-heels in love whilst also feeling their love is forbidden due to Yuwen being married to Liyan. It's all done very gently and gradually but by the end the angst these characters are feeling become very strong. 

Yuwen narrates the first eighteen minutes of the film until she meets Zhichen. It's a narration that depicts the dull routines of daily life whilst really highlighting the character's feelings. Yuwen is very frank about her relationship with her husband and shows no sign of guilt about this, something that was very different to traditional norms of the time and from contemporary films. The narration is very lyrical and poetic and was really beautiful. 

Like many European and American films of the late 40s, this is a film that deals with the aftermath of World War II, in this case specifically the Second Sino-Japanese War. Large parts of China were in ruins and one of the key locations of this film is the ruin of an old city wall. The film represents the trauma people were going through after the war- Liyan is miserable because of the destruction and decline of his estate following the war. There's a suggestion even that Yuwen and Zhichen would have remained together had it not been for the war and so the film is about dealing with the changes and breakdown in relationships and fortunes caused by the war. 

A fascinating film- its cheapness is obvious in places but all the same, it's an emotional story that effectively reflects a specific time and place.