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's become a habit for me.
People walk on the head of the city as if they have left this world, seeing nothing 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.
--- a monologue with his wife in "Spring in a Small Town"
"Spring in a Small Town" is a film directed by Fei Mu in 1948, which was selected as one of the 10 classic works in the 90-year history of Chinese cinema in 1995, and was named the first place in the top 100 films in the century by the Academy Awards in 2005.
Remade in 2002 by director Tian Zhuangzhuang, originally intended to pay tribute to director Fei Mu, in the 1948 version of the integration of Director Tian Zhuangzhuang's personal style, the film also won the Golden Rooster Award and many other awards after the release of the film, but I personally think that the 1948 version is more meaningful, endless aftertaste.
"Spring in a Small Town" is a poetic movie, the plot is simple but rich in meaning, telling the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan in a small town in Jiangnan a couple who do not look like God and are separated from each other but respect each other, the couple meet less than 2 times a day, say less than 3 sentences, married for 8 years, separated for 3 years.
The Dai family is in decline, and in the etiquette is pain and despair.
Dai Liyan, the husband of the rich young master, fell in the middle of the road because of the war, and all day long he faced the home that was destroyed by the war and only left the ruins and broken walls, could not forget the glory of the past, and lived sadly and peacefully.
He would hide in a place where people couldn't find him.
He said he had lung disease, I think he was neurotic.
I didn't have the courage to die, he didn't seem to have the courage to live.
And the wife Zhou Yuwen numbly repeats the family obligations and responsibilities to her husband every day, and the home is like a pool of stagnant water.
The only pleasure of the jade pattern is to take a walk around the city.
Why do you like to go to the city?
The director borrowed his sister's mouth and said, "Only this one place is fun!"
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.
It was this slack that allowed her to live."
Then every day after buying vegetables, I went to my sister's room to embroider flowers, "as if in this room, the sunshine is particularly good, the past has long been forgotten, I don't want anything in this life." 」
Because the 16-year-old sister Dai Xiu is lively and cute, full of vitality, she is not discouraged about the decline of the Dai family.
The younger sister is also the spiritual pillar of the jade pattern.
Days like this would have been a sight to behold.
"The days that followed somehow passed, day after day, day after day."
But this life was shattered by the arrival of her husband's friend Zhang Zhichen.
01、
The lack of moon hanging sparse tong, leaking the first quiet of people.
Whoever sees the ghost alone, ethereal and lonely.
Startled but turned back, there is hatred and no one to save.
Picking all the cold branches refuses to perch, and the lonely sandbar is cold.
--- Song. Su Shi "Bu Operator. Huangzhou Dinghui Courtyard Residence
When Su Shi was degraded to Huangzhou, with his optimistic and open-minded personality and peaceful with the encounter, survival was no problem, but the inner loneliness and loneliness were incomprehensible to no one.
So in this song "Bu Operator. In the words of Huangzhou Dinghui Courtyard Yuju Zuo, Su Shi borrowed the image of Lonely Hong on the night of the moon to entrust his feelings and pin his own feelings on the lyricist.
It is also a true portrayal of his wife's sad and lonely feelings.
The arrival of Zhang Zhichen not only made the family finally have laughter and laughter, but also catharsis of the feelings that Yuwen could not stretch.
It turned out that Zhang Zhichen was Yuwen's first love.
Under the pressure of her mother, Yuwen did not go with Zhang Zhichen, nor did she wait for him, and married someone else under her mother's arrangement.
However, Zhang Zhichen did not hire a matchmaker to speak of a matchmaker, so the two could only have a chance and no part.
When they met again, Yuwen was already the wife of a good friend.
This hatred is endless!
Only half a day after arriving at the Dai family, Zhang Zhichen found that Yuwen was very unhappy, and even very absent-minded.
The director used a long shot to constantly show the changes of the four people, the sister was singing, and Zhang Zhichen's eyes were always staring at the jade pattern that was preparing medicine for her husband.
And Yuwen couldn't help but cry in front of him in the middle of the night when he sent him daily necessities such as towels and toothbrushes.
The grievances in my heart seem to have been vented.
It was the first time they were alone, or in the middle of the night, but the director arranged it very well.
Before Yuwen arrived at Zhang Zhichen's room, she sent a servant to send a pot of orchids she had planted herself to Zhang Zhichen.
The orchid is like a jade pattern itself: fixed in a corner, with no resentment, empty and lonely.
Looking forward to someone to appreciate it!
It is also the jade pattern that borrows orchids to test Zhang Zhichen, and the delivery is the pulse of "borrowing flowers to ask for affection, may the king's heart be like my heart".
So they began to get along intimately and talk to each other behind their husbands' backs.
02、
When the two of them were in love, Zhang Zhichen jokingly proposed to ask Yuwen to go with her on the city wall, and Yuwen said, "Really? Zhang Zhichen was silent.
Until her husband Dai Liyan wanted to match Zhang Zhichen and his sister Dai Xiu, Yuwen not only immediately refused, but also secretly dated Zhang Zhichen again on the city wall, facing Zhang Zhichen with a sentence of "But you already have a husband", Yuwen immediately replied after hearing it, "I am very conflicted, I don't want to go with you."
However, at Dai Xiu's birthday party, Yu Wen boldly used his fist to drink wine to show his heart for Zhang Zhichen.
Compared with the wavering Zhang Zhichen, Yuwen does not hide her desire for love and happiness, showing a prominent feminine consciousness and showing a strong desire to get rid of traditional concepts.
After the feast was over, Yuwen deliberately dressed up, put on a very gorgeous costume, and also put on a headdress, "like drunk, like a dream", and came to Zhang Zhichen's room with joy, but Zhang Zhichen was clearly moved but suppressed and endured.
This scene is the finishing touch of the whole movie!
Zhang Zhichen, who had drunk too much, was admiring the moon in the courtyard, and as soon as he saw the jade pattern coming, he immediately closed the door.
Jade ignored him and forced her way into the house.
Zhang Zhichen had to enter the house as well, half pushing and half hitting, Zhang Zhichen couldn't help but pick up the jade pattern, but after only a few seconds, he gave up.
He suppressed his inner desire, ran out the door again, and locked the jade pattern in the house.
Jade struggled, hammered through the glass in the middle of the door with her hand, and opened the door, but her hand was injured.
Zhang Zhichen saw the situation and immediately took out a medical bag to bandage the jade pattern.
Helplessly, he kissed Jade's injured hand.
Yuwen said "thank you" and walked back to her room sadly and lost.
After Zhang Zhichen calmed down, he was worried about whether Yuwen would not be able to open it, so he pretended to go to Dai Liyan to borrow sleeping pills, and replaced Liyan's sleeping pills with vitamins.
After some tossing, Dai Liyan sensed that something was wrong with the two of them.
Until the next day, when Zhang Zhichen said goodbye to Li Yan with a sense of remorse, "I almost did something that is not human", Li Yan fully understood that in order to fulfill his wife and friends, he took medicine to commit suicide.
Fortunately, Yuwen found it early, and there was Zhang Zhichen, a doctor, who was there, and Li Yan saved his life.
The woman in patrilineal culture is the signifier of another man, and the two are combined by a symbolic order in which the man can maintain his illusions and enchantments through the verbal commands that impose on the silent image of the woman, while the woman remains bound to her position as the bearer of meaning rather than the maker.
In this film, director Fei Mu put Yuwen in the position of "maker", regained the "lost" voice of Chinese women in the past few thousand years, said what she really wanted to say, and did what she really wanted to do.
Although she already knew her fate, Zhang Zhichen's arrival still ignited her strong desire for life.
It's like the lights go out in the movie and candles come to keep going.
Originally, her desire to "elope" was not very strong, just like she often said "I am at your disposal", but it was only casual on the surface, in fact, all the decisions were in the hands of Yu Wen, she could choose to go with Zhang Zhichen, or she could choose to stay and continue to repeat yesterday's life.
It's just the helplessness of women in the context of a particular era.
Yuwen still can't completely get rid of the shackles of tradition, which also shows an inherent deep contradiction in her feminine consciousness.
She just has no feelings for her husband, but the relationship between husband and wife is still there.
Her husband even died to fulfill her and her best friend.
Compared with the etiquette at the beginning of the film, which only indulges in the glory of the past, the etiquette at this time shows his manly responsibility.
After some farce, the "don't dare to live" polite words should also live well.
03、
Although the end of "Spring in a Small Town" is yuwen holding LiYan on the city wall to watch Zhang Zhichen leave, it gives people infinite hope and longing.
It is advisable to regard Zhang Zhichen as the embodiment of "hope", he is like the wind of spring, bringing hope and vitality to the Dai family in distress.
Some scholars commented on "Spring in a Small Town":
"Spring in a Small Town" is not so much Fei Mu's lyricism of real life, but more importantly a manifestation of his new understanding of human nature, or a continued exploration of human nature on the basis of a new understanding of human nature:
They always care about and understand others, and put consideration of the interests of others in the pursuit of their own wishes.
Because this is in line with the spirit of director Fei Mu's "lifelong adherence to Confucian tradition and humanitarianism".
"Spring in a Small Town" has both the conflict of emotion and identity, and the conflict of love and reason in the depths of one's own soul.
The real Mr. Fei Mu is also not only distorted by external pressures, but also suffered from internal conflicts.
Borrowing the "grievances" of the jade pattern to pin the director's worries about the rise and fall of the home country and the cultural crisis, "the country is broken in the mountains and rivers, the city is deep in the spring grass and trees", the intention is far-reaching, full of extra-string sounds, creating a huge interpretable artistic space.
The conflict between human nature and tradition, the victory of reason over feelings, is also a kind of humanistic care for social life.
As director Faimus said:
"I met the author without losing my original intention.
The author's proposition is that there is no willingness to shout and point out the way on this subject.
I agreed with him".
(All the pictures in this article are from the movie "Spring in a Small Town", invaded and deleted)