Zhang Yimou said this paragraph when talking about the movie "Spring in a Small Town":
As far as Chinese films are concerned, my favorite is 1948's "Spring in a Small Town", which I think reached a considerable height at that time, and we think that we still can't compare it with it today.
That's true. Fei Mu's "Spring in a Small Town" is a miracle in the history of Chinese cinema, and the aesthetic height of its lens language, line monologues, symbolic allegories and other compositions is not exaggerated, and it still emits a warm and soft light, becoming a cross-era and heart-wrenching pinnacle, and its influence is as enduring as the old wine of aging. In addition to Tian Zhuangzhuang and Ah Cheng's remake tribute in 2002, zhang Yimou, Wong Kar-wai and other works can see the influence of the traditional oriental aesthetic genes constructed by Fei Mu in this film. In 1997, when Dai Jinhua hosted the Chinese Film Night in France, he was confronted with the question of whether the shooting time was wrong by the French reporters who were surrounded by water, and said bluntly with irrepressible pride: "Yes, at this time, all the New Wave film languages that you are proud of have appeared in China." It can be seen that it has a position and influence that cannot be ignored in the history of Chinese film and even in the history of world film.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > theme connotation: love is a medicine, saving each other, and also releasing the repressed self, implying the beautiful prospect of WanmuChun in front of the diseased tree</h1>
Against the backdrop of the vigorous times, "Story of a Small Town" is like a long and long sigh.
After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the small southern city was filled with the atmosphere of "the country is broken by mountains and rivers, and the grass and trees in the spring of the city are deep". The story is that in such a desolate spring, the squire Dai Liyan's family lives in an old mansion that was almost destroyed by the war, and life is as plain and trivial as a pool of stagnant water. Dai Liyan, who is seriously ill, is indulging in the prosperity of the past day after day in self-hatred and self-love and does not want to wake up, his wife Zhou Yuwen is buying vegetables and medicines every day and then embroidery, the relationship between husband and wife is like the most familiar stranger, there is no enthusiasm like fire, only cold like water, such a gloomy and silent atmosphere, Zhang Zhichen's arrival is like a stone thrown into the calm lake, spreading out a circle of ripples.
At the intersection of tradition and modernity, "Story of a Small Town" is like an anti-bone, neither left nor right, deliberately pointing the camera to the daily life of the scarred people in that era, in a calm and tight description, the conflict between morality and lust, love and friendship is cleverly told, thus constituting a slightly alternative traditional classical aesthetic aura that is inseparable from the times.
Zhang Zhichen, who studied medicine, is Dai Liyan's classmate and zhou Yuwen's first love. When the meeting and the nostalgia of the ghost make the gods intersect, the delicate relationship between the three becomes the main line of the movie, and dai Liyan's sister, Dai Xiu, who has just opened up, also has a hazy affection with Zhang Zhichen. The delicate and in-depth depiction of such multi-dimensional emotions alienates the film from the mainstream notes of the times at that time, just like the interlude King Robin's "In That Distant Place" in the film, which is just a vague footnote under the grand mainstream narrative of that era, showing a kind of "youth just comes from time to time" of loneliness and self-appreciation.
Living in a small town, living a day without change every day, buying vegetables in the morning, always like to take a trip to the city wall. It has become a habit for me, and people walking on the head of the city as if they have left this world, not seeing anything in their eyes and not thinking of anything in their hearts. If it weren't for the vegetable basket in my hand and the medicine my husband took when he was sick, he might not have come home all day.
At the beginning of the film, this kind of tone narrates a confused emotion in the tone of Zhou Yuwen, thus defining the faint narrative tone of the whole movie. The blood-defunctional feelings between Dai Liyan and Zhou Yuwen actually used "medicine" as the only way to communicate with each other tacitly, and the eternally sick Dai Liyan's understanding of his illness was a kind of despair that went deep into the bone marrow, "My body is like this house, too bad to be cleaned up." But Zhou Yuwen is not his "medicine", and he also has a desperate abandonment of Dai Liyan's illness, "He said he had lung disease, I think he was neurotic." It can be seen that such a relationship is destined to be a kind of torture that cannot see each other's heads, and the symbolic meaning of this disease has a similar expression method to Lin Daiyu's disease in "Dream of the Red Chamber". Zhang Zhichen's arrival became a turning point, and his Western medical methods were undoubtedly effective for Dai Liyan's illness, but as he and Zhou Yuwen said, "Liyan's body is not a big problem, but the heart is not good." "The implication is that it is a bit difficult to treat the heart disease.
Heart disease also needs heart medicine. Dai Liyan's illness is the hidden dark line of this movie, and Dai Liyan's heart disease is finally cured but it is the final return to the trajectory of the emotional entanglement between the three people in the moral sense. The feelings between Zhang Zhichen and Zhou Yuwen that wandered on the edge of the forbidden area were finally stopped on the cliff, and such an ending was undoubtedly moral, and this emotional lost knowledge saved each other and also saved Dai Liyan. For Dai Liyan and Zhou Yuwen, Zhang Zhichen is undoubtedly an antidote to their emotional rejuvenation, and it is Zhang Zhichen's restrained love that finally chooses to release the repressed self of the three of them in a let-go posture, thus achieving a final sense of perfection.
And Dai Xiu is undoubtedly Zhang Zhichen's medicine. This flower-like woman is full of vitality, and the hazy love between her and Zhang Zhichen is the key to Zhang Zhichen's emotional entanglement with Zhou Yuwen so that she will not fall into it, and it also shows that the new love of hope is a kind of chaos for the old despair, just like the city wall in her eyes is so different from the city wall in Zhou Yuwen's eyes:
There is no end to the road along the city wall, look outside the city, look at the distance with your eyes, you know that the heavens and the earth are not so small.
The sick tree is in front of Wanmu Spring. The road is underfoot, but the eyes must look into the distance. It is under the guidance of such a concept, in the dilapidated and decadent southern town with a desperate atmosphere, and finally everyone finds their lost self, Zhang Zhichen walks out of the small city to pursue his dreams without hesitation, and the emotions between Dai Liyan and Zhou Yuwen also have a great turnaround, everything is going to prosperity, and the theme of the spring of the small town is also fully presented to the audience.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > artistic style: slowness is a kind of depth, and the comprehensive use of blank space, metaphor, symbolism and other techniques creates an elegant temperament that is independent of traditional aesthetic heritage</h1>
In the interpretation of the theme, the artistic expression method of "Spring in a Small Town" is undoubtedly a kind of unintentional willow-like genius, its lens language is implicit, restrained and pure, so that the ultimate expression technique with experimental nature has an aesthetic perception that transcends the times, opening a precedent for the poeticization of Chinese films, forming a screen aesthetic with unique oriental charm, concise and timeless, and full of meaning.
But thinking about that era, shooting such a movie at that time was undoubtedly a rebellious act that risked the world. Director Faimu once said this when talking about the film:
In order to convey the gray mood of ancient China, I made an arrogant and bold attempt to construct my play with "long shots" and "slow motion". ......
I originally wanted to make up for the shortcomings of the original work, describing the character of Li Yan as a figure of the landlord class, and I was ready to mention such a thing as "the rent cannot be collected, and the land cannot be sold." However, these inverted friezes are the fate of these characters, and they are also the luckiest friezes - I don't think it needs to be extra, leaving it to the audience to criticize. I met the author (referring to the playwright Li Tianji) without losing my original intention. The author's proposition is that on this subject, he is unwilling to shout and point out the way. I agreed with him; but I found it far easier and more forceful in production than shouting it out or pointing out a way out.
This is not a deliberate justification, director Fei Mu undoubtedly has a clear understanding of the social situation at that time, but in the end he is still unwilling to paint snakes and add to the foot, and together with the playwright, he adheres to the original intention, and adopts a way equivalent to the "blank space" in traditional Chinese painting to conceal the common characteristics of that era, "the real thing is hidden, the false village dialect is hidden". And in this overall style, Fei Mu uses that lyrical long shot and slow motion as the main lens use technique, under the slow and long shot, like a frame close-up, a good interpretation of the fate trajectory of the characters in the play, especially the long shots that echo at the beginning and end of the film are even more evocative.
In addition to the use of lenses, the use of seemingly random metaphors and symbolic techniques in the film, as well as just the right narration and minimalist dialogue, vividly highlight the personality characteristics of the characters in the play in detail, and create an intriguing traditional aesthetic atmosphere. For example, the names of the protagonists in the movie, Dai Liyan, Zhou Yuwen and Zhang Zhichen, actually imply a representative cultural trait, and the conservative meaning of Dai Liyan, the beautiful image of Zhou Yuwen, and the vitality symbol of Zhang Zhichen are self-evident. Another example is dai xiu giving Zhang Zhichen a pot of pine tree bonsai and saying to the pot of orchids that Zhou Yuwen gave to Zhang Zhichen: "The orchids are too fragrant, not good." "There is a certain value judgment and pursuit implied in the seemingly casual words, which is very in line with the personality of the respective characters." The deep meaning of such an understatement can be seen everywhere in the whole film, which greatly enriches the information content of the whole film, and also euphemistically indicates the director's thoughtful aesthetic pursuit. The same is true of the stethoscope and sleeping pills in Chinese medicine and Western medicine in the film, as well as Zhang Zhichen's advice to Dai Liyan to bask in the sun more; and in the scene where Zhou Yuwen visits Zhang Zhichen at night, the dialogue between the two uses simple tone auxiliaries "Oh? "Oh" and so on with light and shadow effects, cut out the complicated and simple but straight to the core; in that drinking scene, the different looks between the characters are vividly expressed, and the two sentences in the "Yu Meiren" of Li Yu, the lord of the Southern Tang Dynasty, who appeared many times in the background screen, "Xiaolou was in the east wind last night, so the country could not look back at the moon and the middle of the moon", which showed that kind of home and country feelings silently and turned thousands of times.
The ubiquitous metaphors and symbols of this film have a taste that can only be understood and ineffable, and give it a strong humanistic atmosphere and aesthetic temperament, making it a strange flower in the history of film. Zhong Yitang, the father of Ah Cheng, the screenwriter of Tian Zhuangzhuang's version of "Spring in a Small Town" and known as the founder of Chinese film aesthetics, said of this film:
There is no noise, the characters are common, the scenery is also common, the protagonist is not a revolutionary fighter who is charging into the battlefield, but he looks forward to a new world outside the cage.
In the daily life scenes and pictures to explore those details that are ignored by the grand narrative, and present it to the world in a unique screen language, creating a kind of elegant temperament of the relict independence, and such an aesthetic temperament finally blooms gently in time, so that the film finally "blows out the yellow sand and begins to gold" in the big waves, and finally achieves positive results, becoming the most classic chapter in the history of cinema.
There is no spring that will not come.
Fei Mu's "Spring in a Small Town" was like a comet across the sky in the film world at that time, and the moment was eternal. This film, which was criticized by people at that time as "with some narrow, conservative, old,and secluded atmosphere", is now in the depths of time "folding the sand and sinking iron", and finally in the "self-will grinding and recognizing the former dynasty", it has been posthumously recognized and worshipped by its artistic achievements by later generations, and its artistic height is high enough to stand in the annals of history.