Movie No. 9 (2019): SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN

Spring In A Small Town (1948)
Director: Mu Fei
Cast: Chaoming Cui, Zhou Yuwen
In Chinese, with English subtitles

The title suggests the movie is confined, with a simple story, go gimmicks, nothing grand. Indeed, it is. In fact, there are no twists and turns. Just a plain but fluid narrative that focuses on characters. The movie is a gem - cinema in its purest sense. And I really like it that way.

The movie is (almost) a love triangle. The setting is post-war, rural China. One character (a landowner) is seen to have caught affliction (organic and psychological) as the effect of war. His wife (Wei Wei) has already accepted her fate to deal with him and his affliction. And then another character enters the picture - a doctor, who may or may not help the afflicted. But then the doctor seems to have an unfinished business with the wife before she married the landowner. The story has no convolutions. The scenes are so composed that tensions (erotic or otherwise) are subtle and controlled. The backdraft is a broken landscape that the war had left behind.

It all happened during one spring in that small town, where characters were forced to confront the past, and then moved on.

Rating: 4.0/4.0

Date seen: April 7, 2019