Abandoned city head, deserted town, two men and one woman emotional entanglement, Fei Mu's "Spring of a Small Town" with a faint brushstroke to tell a story of grievances, and the exciting atmosphere of that era can be said to be incompatible.
But it is such a bland story that can happen from all over the world that still seems shocking today.
In 1995, "Spring in a Small Town" was voted by the Executive Committee of the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival as the 5th most popular Chinese film in the history of film, and the Hong Kong Film Awards listed this film as the 100 best Chinese films in China.
I look at this film from a modern perspective completely, purely personal opinion, if it is not based on a specific purpose, such as I like movies, representative movies want to see, or study specific themes, want to understand how the views of different eras on a certain issue have evolved, there is no need to chase this movie in particular.
However, the plot of "Spring in a Small Town" is straightforward and easy to understand, and the themes you want to express are also obvious, and it will not be difficult to digest if you want to find it.
The more special thing about this film is its background of the times, when China had just ended the eight-year War of Resistance, the film presented the atmosphere and changes of the whole society through the behavior and interaction of the characters, China from a country where traditional scholars and doctors formed a social elite, traditional etiquette encountered the contradictions and conflicts caused by Western open ideas, and it was a very early work that showed the awakening of women.
<h1>The text carries the inheritance of the Tao</h1>
At the beginning of the film, the heroine's narration is like the usual popular drama cliché, but soon the audience realizes that this is neither a memory nor a voice, and that the owner of the voice is like a heavenly eye, a subsection that breaks the traditional narrative time and space, which is both beyond the film language of that era and echoes the traditional Chinese drama stage practice.
Under the skillful guidance of Fei Mu, the heroine Wei Wei, who was a newcomer at the time, played a subtle and meticulous role, and the subtle language of the film echoed and cooperated, telling the story of this female emotional struggle gracefully and movingly. But today, what really moves about this film is its cinematic aesthetic that is both modern and quaint.
From the perspective of film history, it is an indispensable link.
Among the early Chinese directors who had a deep tradition of writing and caring more about the main idea of content than the art of expression, Fei Mu was probably the one who thought the most about film aesthetics, and his film works from time to time revealed the ambition to naturally blend Chinese and Western theater traditions, introducing the concept of traditional arts such as opera as an experiment.
And "Spring in a Small Town" is the most mature of Fei Mu's works that we can see, and the quotation of various traditional aesthetic techniques and concepts shows a certain avant-garde that is beyond the times in the film.
It is this tradition of avant-garde that makes Spring in a Small Town, which has fallen into disrepair, no less than a film classic around the world. Even today, the novelty in this film is no less than the films made more than 70 years later.
I believe this is one of the reasons why "Spring in a Small Town" continues to become the best Chinese film in the minds of audiences.
As for the essence of the "Spring in a Small Town" movie, it is in the six words of "affection, stop etiquette".
From this point of view, "Spring in a Small Town" is not a very well discussed film, because the emotions expressed in the play are not easy to interpret in words, and it is difficult to find accurate words to capture the essence of the film. What is easy to express in words is often not the focus of the movie. The situation is a bit like Ozu's film, which on the surface seems to be very shallow and seems to understand, but in fact it is difficult to disassemble it layer by layer in an orderly manner.
Fei Mu also tried to establish the aesthetics of Chinese cinema in "Spring in a Small Town".
He uses a horizontal composition aesthetic: like the banner scrolls of Chinese paintings, less deep composition is used. A continuous long shot is used to show the complex state between the characters.
The treatment of the voice is mostly expressed in dialogue and narration, and rarely uses the soundtrack. As for the complexity of the narration, it is breathtaking. Among them, the subjective and objective alternate, between the virtual and the real, and thus produce the counterpoint and tension between the sounds and pictures.
Nor can the extraordinary artistic achievements of "Spring in a Small Town" be explained by the general and general "Chinese characteristics".
<h1>The love of Zhou Yuwen and Zhang Zhichen</h1>
One of the controversial points of "Spring in a Small Town" is whether the heroine Zhou Yuwen in the film embodies the Confucian meaning of "sending affection and stopping etiquette"?
In the end, Yu wen did not get along with the old Ai Zhichen, and at the end, she stayed by her husband's side, does it mean that the film or Fei Mu affirmed a relatively traditional and conservative ethics and morality?
Some viewers said that the jade pattern was out of courtesy, so it did not really do anything wrong. But this statement is obviously inconsistent with the content of the film. In the ambiguous relationship between Yuwen and Zhichen, she not only behaves positively and aggressively, but also has no moral restraints or apologies. However, after Zhi Chen heard Li Yan's words of gratitude to his wife in the middle of the paragraph, he was ashamed.
First of all, in the film, Zhichen proposes to Yuwen that he wants to leave. The meaning of Yuwen and Zhichen to each other was actually clearly expressed very early.
On the first night of Zhi Chen's stay, Yu Wen had been tempted by the old man; when she saw that he was still not gentle, she immediately changed his clothes and added a quilt for him, and Yu Wen's brisk steps could hardly hide the anxiety and joy in his heart.
The next morning, everyone went to the head of the city for a walk, and Zhichen took the opportunity to drag Yuwen's hand a little, and she did not struggle at all--this time, the intentions of both sides were clear to each other. Of course, Yuwen's courage was strong, and the next morning she met Zhichen to go to the city for a solo date, and when they met, their conversation was like a private love affair between lovers. Later, Yuwen once tasted the night to tease and tease Zhichen, and did not shy away from showing affection to Zhichen in front of her husband and sister-in-law.
Yuwen almost unthinkingly embraces her renewed love affair with Zhichen, in contrast, Zhichen is the one with moral vigilance.
The relationship between Yuchen and Zhichen did not continue to develop, not because Yuwen adhered to any normative dogma, but because Zhichen exactly rejected her.
In the second half of the movie, when celebrating the sixteenth birthday of the sister-in-law Dai Xiu, Yuwen and Zhichen are slightly drunk. While the wine was in full swing, Yuwen combed his makeup and touched Zhichen's room.
He wouldn't have let her in, she had forced her in; he picked her up and put her down again; and finally he locked her back in the house, and she tried to escape, and with her elbow she smashed the glass on the door, but broke her palm. When Zhichen bandaged Yuwen, she must have known that everything was over.
This is a man's very firm rejection of a woman. It was Zhi Chen who cut off the love thread, not the jade pattern.
On this important night, another thing happens, which can be understood as a turning point in the whole movie.
The injured Yuwen went to Dai Liyan's room to get sleeping pills, and Liyan lit a foreign candle and sat on the edge of the bed to let him take a good look at her. Li Yan first blamed himself for his wife's grievances over the years, and then he admired Yuwen's youth, vitality and beauty when he celebrated in the evening.
"I almost forgot you would be my wife!" He said. Finally, Li Yan calmly asked, "Tell me, do you still like Zhichen now?" ”
Caught in the whirlpool of love triangle, she did not answer, but just fell on her husband and cried.
The next day, Yuwen's attitude towards Zhichen completely changed.
She decided how to live, and she made up her mind to ask Zhichen to go. Who knew that the etiquette on the side had misunderstood, and taught him to be willing to take his life. During the uncertain time when Li Yan was lying on the bed, the care, remorse, and sorrow shown by Yu Wen were not at all comparable to her previous kindness of only seeking to fulfill her wife's responsibilities.
Here, jade is a true love for Li Yan, and I am sure that she was touched by Li Yan's trust, admiration, and inseparable affection the night before.
After Li Yan woke up, Yuwen said to him, "What's wrong with you... Why are you? Then he couldn't help but cry on his husband's shoulder while holding his husband's hand tightly with his injured hand.
Over here. I don't think that the affection here, or the meaning of the love triangle in "Spring in a Small Town", can be explained purely by saying that "jade grain returns to traditional ethical values". Spring in a Small Town does not subordinate individuals or feelings to certain norms and ideas. What overcomes momentary lust in the film is a more generous, deeper, and more sensitive love for others.
<h1>Voiceover of Spring in a Small Town</h1>
（1）
"Spring in a Small Town" has been repeatedly named the best Chinese film in history. Loved by fans and scholars. Even the fifth-generation famous director Tian Zhuangzhuang is also his fan, and regards the remake of "Spring in a Small Town" as his top priority for his comeback.
The biggest reason why Fei Mu's "Spring in a Small Town" has left its name for posterity is because he has made Chinese feelings, he blended the style of traditional Chinese drama, with a deep and delicate description of Chinese, so that the film shows a mood like a Chinese painting.
In addition, he also uses the narrative method of voice-over to expose the emotions of the people in the film to the audience.
Tian Zhuangzhuang's remake is obviously intended to continue this style, even to go more extreme.
The whole film of the new "Spring in a Small Town" is basically connected by long shots, almost one scene and one shot, each time entering a new scene. And most of them are shot in a slow-moving shot, shooting the actor's dialogue in a telescopic manner. There are no close-up shots at all, and there are few emotional soundtracks.
Everything relies only on the tension of dialogue to create drama, and this traditional stage play practice is actually quite excessive, and it is too monotonous. If you carefully observe the old version of "Spring in a Small Town", you will find that Director Fei Mu's directing method is actually very flexible. Although he likes to use moving long shots to maintain the coherence of the play, it will not remain static.
He will add some close-up shots according to the needs of the plot, such as dissolution, monologue and other techniques.
Relatively speaking, Tian Zhuangzhuang's new version of "Spring in a Small Town" is obviously too focused on retaining the characteristics of traditional Chinese drama, not only the actor's performance method is full of stage drama flavor, but also the restraint and suppression of film technology.
For example, the use of montage is minimized, and any trick is avoided in the connection of the picture. Even the dissolution technique is rarely used. In addition, the voiceover monologue and so on have all been deleted. All scenes are supported only by the composition of the picture and the interpretation of the actors.
If Fei Mu is a detached Daoist, then Tian Zhuangzhuang is an ascetic monk.
I believe that everyone who has seen Fei Mu's works will notice that Tian Zhuangzhuang has several obvious changes in his handling:
Aside from the cancellation of the monologue, there are almost no close-ups. In addition, the lens movement becomes more subtle and restrained.
In Fei Mu's original work, we were led into the back garden of the heroine Zhou Yuwen's soul by Wei Wei's dream-like monologue at the beginning, which was a bit of Du Liniang's dream of visiting the garden. What happens in the future may just be a spring dream, it may be true, or it may be a mixture of truth and illusion.
But in Tian Zhuangzhuang's version, there is no monologue, and he wants to keep a distance from Yuwen, but he is relatively close to her husband Dai Liyan and her old lover Zhang Zhichen, making a more objective and equal overall feeling. The film begins with a distant mirror with jade patterns strolling over the head of the city, and soon picks up the salute that is grinding in the tattered pile of the courtyard of the small courtyard, and the sound of the train is faintly heard, and Zhichen comes down from the train.
（2）
Finally, Lao Huang appeared, and he walked around the dilapidated old mansion and walked from the sunny cloister into liyan's gloomy and dark room. On the afternoon of the third day, a pair of old lovers meet on the battlements, the camera has been at a reserved distance, Yuwen pointed to the hand hanging on the bald tree and said: The day you came, it was like this, I fell asleep, and the handkerchief flew away. Yes, it's day-to-day life, Jade is not dreaming, everything is true. The spring wind blew away the thoughts and thoughts of the daughter's family, and it was Zhichen who retrieved them and handed them back into the hands of the master.
Lust was bouncing in the shadowed light, and the people in the room were full of excitement, only Li Yan was an outsider.
The night was silent, and he walked alone to the garden, leaning on the tree and crying bitterly, and the camera sympathetically accompanied him, not to disturb. In the room, a somewhat drunken Zhichen said to his sister, "You remember, you will never be 16 years old again." She cried wildly, took the jade-veined hand and refused to let go, and spread her handkerchief on her face, how could he not be a frustrated person? The sister suddenly understood, she snatched the handkerchief back and dragged her sister-in-law away. Back in the room, Yuwen crouched on the bed and sobbed, and then walked to the vanity mirror, the tears washed away the earlier style, Zhichen turned his heart sideways and walked out of the door.
In Fei Mu's original work, the ending is that the husband and wife send Zhichen on the battlements together, which is not optimistic, but also has a more cheerful smell.
Half a century later, it was still sent out of the city by his sister and Lao Huang, but Li Yan and Yu Wen did not even take half a step out of the house, one pruning branches in the garden downstairs, and the other still running to his sister's room upstairs to embroider flowers.
Outside the painting, the whistle of the train is heard, and everyone upstairs and downstairs thinks about it, and then returns to the work at hand, as if nothing has happened. The film ends with an empty mirror on a battlement, which has a long-lasting confusion.
In comparison, Tian's strong Jiangnan town is more desolate and lonely than Fei Mu's Songjiang River, and the owners of the old mansion are still self-enclosed in a dilapidated courtyard, where will they regain the fun of "Flower Words"?
And the hostess, still, I still hold the rattan basket every day to buy small vegetables, and then through the decadent town, the charm of the ghost domain, to the medicinal material shop to carry a bag of medicine, and then to the battlements for half a quarter of an hour...
If Spring in a Small Town, made in 1948, is Fei Mu's response to the times, then Tian Zhuangzhuang's remake can also be said to express his attitude towards our new era. When most people danced and participated in the destruction of human civilization, he chose to listen silently, keep a distance and wait, away from the floating and complicated material reality and return to the dark and deep emotional world.
Tian Zhuangzhuang's new version of "Spring in a Small Town" focuses on retaining the characteristics of the original work, and also shoots a faint ancient style feeling, and the sincerity is really commendable. Unfortunately, the axe is chiseled everywhere, and the directing technique is too elaborate, and it is always less radiant than Fei Mu's original version.
So I can't lie and say that Tian Zhuangzhuang's "Spring in a Small Town" is better than Fei Mu's original.
Tian Zhuangzhuang said in the remake of "Spring in a Small Town":
"Today's re-shooting of "Spring in a Small Town" is a process of copying and learning classic Chinese films. Only by choosing this form can we future generations of filmmakers directly communicate with our predecessors, which is a rare opportunity. Especially director Fei Mu, his knowledge and unique perception of the film is the pride of the Chinese film industry, and it is my luck to be able to re-shoot "Spring in a Small Town" today. ”
Reading this paragraph, people are amazed from the bottom of their hearts. The first is the admiration for the achievements of the master, and the second is the admiration for the humble and gentlemanly demeanor of director Tian Zhuangzhuang.
<h1>A woman's desires and struggles</h1>
"Spring in a Small Town" unfolds with jade-patterned self-descriptions and flashbacks, the language is slow and melancholy, and the poetry reflects a complaining woman's dissatisfaction with her life and emotional situation, as well as her yearning for beautiful emotions and despair of the status quo.
She wandered over the dilapidated city walls again and again, expressing her inner depression and wandering again and again. That section of the broken city wall appeared many times, which was the place where Yuwen was lonely and depressed, the place where Dai Xiu longed for outside life, and the place where Yuwen and Zhichen shared old feelings and rekindled their passions.
Therefore, this section of the city wall is an important place for the development of the plot in the film, and it is also an important clue throughout the film, which hints at the background of the film's era and metaphorically describes the inner loneliness and helplessness of the characters in the film.
Yuwen expressed his dissatisfaction with the past several times, suggesting that Zhichen's failure to unite with himself was a lifelong regret and the root of today's unfortunate life.
However, she also clearly expressed her determination not to go with him now, but after getting drunk, she took the initiative to confide in Zhang Zhichen. It can be seen that the character of Jade Pattern is deeply immersed in the vortex of feelings and the contradiction of ethics. Compared with some of today's physical pursuits, the evaluation of enduring moral bondage is very different.
As a main line that runs through the whole film, her feelings are amplified, as the main stem of the dominant factor supporting this emotional entanglement. From the moment of her voiceover, Fermo tried to express this intention.
Dai Liyan is a hidden factor in Fermú's means of expression. At first, people thought that he was just a disease-ridden and strange feudal relic. The more he went on, the more he felt that he also had love for the jade pattern, but it was more mixed with guilt. The appearance of Zhang Zhichen undoubtedly aggravated the changes in his feelings. In fact, why is he not a victim of this misplaced relationship?
In the end, Dai Liyan used death to complete the repayment of the jade pattern, which completely pushed the entire film to a climax.
"Spring in a Small Town" is still telling the most traditional story of China, the most traditional homely routine of Chinese women, reflecting the most ordinary and special reality in China, so it is the "Spring of a Small Town" of the nation.
Mr. Fei Mu uses the audiovisual language to constantly explore the perfect integration of Chinese charm and expression with Western technology and thinking, so it is the world's "Spring of a Small Town".
In fact, it is a bit of a sigh, when "Spring in a Small Town" was born in 1948, it seemed to be a bit out of time. At that time, the social environment was easy for everyone to ignore its existence, and the emotional entanglement and sighing of men and women in a closed small city were actually not in harmony with the main theme of the society at that time.
But fortunately, the film also "returns to the sky". To this day, in the past 70 years, it is still sought after by many scholars and audiences.
Even Zhang Yimou said: "My favorite films have a lot, can not list them all, as far as Chinese films are concerned, my favorite is "Spring in a Small Town", I think this film reached a considerable height at that time, and we think that we still can't compare with it today. ”
Regrettably, director Fei Mu had no choice but to leave Hong Kong the following year for various reasons. He was full of hopes to return to the mainland as soon as possible, but died of illness in Xiangjiang in 1951. His feelings of home and country can no longer be expressed through movies.
And this regret, like "Spring in a Small Town", there is no second one.
Resources
Mtime.com. "A Lovely Rose - Spring in a Small Town": A Woman's Desire and Struggle"
Xinbao Financial News. "After the unearthing of "Confucius", we will explore the poet director Fei Mu"