The main plot content of "Spring in a Small Town" is briefly introduced and appreciated

【Synopsis】

　　In early spring, the dignified and beautiful young woman Zhou Yuwen carried a vegetable basket and walked indifferently on the ruins of a deserted and dilapidated city wall. The wilderness is empty, uninhabited, quiet, only the voice of the jade pattern is pouring out: "I live in a small town, and I live a day without change every day." In the morning, after buying vegetables, I always like to walk on the city wall, which has become a habit in me. People walk on the top of the city as if they have left this world. My eyes don't look at anything, my heart doesn't think about anything, if it weren't for the vegetable basket in my hand and the medicine my husband took, I might not have come home all day. ”

　　She finally went home. The home was like a city wall, broken and decayed. The walls are ruined and overgrown with weeds, and the study boudoir is also desolate. Her husband, Dai Liyan, a sick reader who had lost his family property and lost the courage to live in the war, sat idly on the slope of the wasteland in the garden. Husband and wife see each other, few words. It seems to respect each other as guests, but in fact, they do not give up. Respect is filled with indifference, resentment, repression, and a heart-to-heart separation.

　　Only Dai Liyan's sister, Dai Xiu, a 16-year-old middle school student, brought a hint of spring to this person's indifferent and Jing Yiser family. As Yuwen said, "Her brother does not forget the glory of the past, and her sister does not linger." Now that the Dai family has fallen, it is painful and desperate in etiquette, and the sister will not be discouraged. ”

　　On this day, the dull, half-dead life was broken, broken by a young doctor Zhang Zhichen who broke into this small town from the outside world. Zhichen was Yuwen's lover when she was 16 years old, and later became Liyan's friend. But eight years of war and chaos left him ignorant of their marriage. Originally an old friend, I did not expect to meet a lover. Old friends meet, surprises are mixed; Lovers look at each other, and the emotion is more than surprise.

　　On the night of Zhi Chen's arrival, the four of them gathered in the ceremonial room. Sister Dai Xiu sang songs, and she was very happy about the arrival of Big Brother Zhang in her childhood memories. Yu Wen prepared medicine for Li Yan to make a bed, his face showed anger, and Li Yan sat up with a smile, but he also looked like a healthy person. Only Zhichen thought about it and watched Yu Wen's every move. In the dead of night, after the others went to sleep, Yuwen went to the study where Zhichen lived to prepare a futon for him. The two talked only faintly about the illness of etiquette, and did not say anything else. At midnight, the whistle sounded and the lights went out. Yuwen couldn't bear it any longer, and sobbed softly on the table, Zhichen grabbed her hand, but she gently withdrew.

　　The next day, four people went out. Strolling along the city wall, Zhichen quietly held the hand of the jade pattern, and the river was boating, and the love thread rippled with the ripples.

　　Another morning, the jade pattern about the city wall met. The two snuggled up next to the battlements, talking passionately. Zhi Chen: "Before the war, I asked you to go with me, you said you would do whatever I wanted, I wouldn't ask you to go with me, you also said you would do whatever I wanted." Yu Wen: "I didn't wait for you, I didn't take you casually." "If I ask you to go with me now, will you let me go?" Really?" Neither of them could answer.

　　The husband said that he only knew that the two of them knew each other, but did not know that they were in love. He asked Zhichen to help persuade Yuwen not to live such a miserable life. And he understood that the root of this misery was himself. Zhi Chen was ordered to persuade him, and Yu Wen told him bluntly. She knew that Li Yan liked her, and she had forced herself to like Li Yan. Day by day, the etiquette became more and more eccentric, and life became only a responsibility to her. As a wife, she serves her husband with a dead heart, but in her heart she always thinks of Zhichen and feels sorry for the courtesy. What to do?" Unless he dies. The words blurted out, and Yu Wen was terrified.

　　Zhi chen knew that he should not stay any longer, and he bid farewell to Li Yan, who was not allowed. Just when Dai Xiu invited him to go out to play, the two went up to the city wall. Dai Xiu told him that staying in this home would really kill people. "The eldest sister-in-law has to walk around the city every day, and maybe this makes her feel a little more relaxed. It was this bit of relief that gave her the courage to live again. After Zhi Chen listened, he had a taste in his heart.

　　Li Yan found that her sister liked Brother Zhang, so she asked Yuwen to go to Zhichen to match. Yuwen blamed her sister on the grounds that she was still young and was studying. But when the two dated again at the city wall, she very seriously proposed to Zhichen, who resolutely disagreed and lamented why No one matched them when Yuwen was 16 years old. At that time, Yuwen's mother did not agree, and now her mother is dead, but she has a husband. Both were conflicted in their hearts.

　　On a clear night in the moon, the four of them ate wine and celebrated Dai Xiu's birthday. After a few glasses of wine, Yuwen and Zhichen are difficult to sustain themselves, and they are inseparable from each other, just like in those days. Polite words are perceived, and words are not right. After drinking, Yuwen's passion was hard to suppress, and he dressed up a little and ran to the study. At this time, the moon rose high, slightly windy. She "seemed to be drunk, like a dream." Zhi Chen stopped the jade pattern outside the door, and the jade pattern broke in. He looked at Jade, and then he picked her up violently, turned her around, but put her in a chair again, ran out on his own, and locked the door from the outside. Yu Wen knocked the door in the room. The glass on the door shattered, piercing the jade-patterned hand. Zhi Chen hurried into the room to bandage her, holding the bandaged hand and kissing it affectionately. Jade was ashamed, Mu Ran.

　　On that side, it was difficult for Li Yan to sleep. He knew that he had killed Yuwen and made her live a hopeless life all these years, and Zhichen had restored her youth. He wanted to end it all, either to live healthily or to die. He told this confession of his heart to the jade vein that had come into his room to find medicine. Jade was stunned.

　　Yuwen decided to change her life, "I want to live, I have to let Zhichen go." ”

　　Zhi Chen had decided to leave, and he told Li Yan, "Yu Wen, what she needs is you." ”

　　Li Yan made a different choice. He first went into his wife's room, touched it, for the first time in years, lit another incense in front of the Buddha statue, and then calmly took the sleeping pills.

　　Zhi Chen was busy giving first aid, and Yu Wen fell on her husband and cried uncontrollably: "Your heart..., what is wrong with you..., why are you...." The etiquette finally eased.

　　The little sister also understood the feelings of the eldest sister-in-law, and the two sisters-in-law hugged each other tightly.

　　On the morning of the melting spring, Yuwen, Liyan and Xiaomei sent off Zhichen. The husband and wife stood side by side on the city wall, watching Zhichen go to the outside world.

　　【Appreciation】

　　Spring in a Small Town was the last feature film directed by the famous Chinese film director Fei Mu (1906-1951) in the 1930s and 1940s. When the film was released in Shanghai in 1948, it did not cause any sensation. It was played out flat for weeks, and several opinion pieces of disagreement appeared in the press. Nearly 40 years later, the re-release of "Spring in a Small Town" caused a shock at home and abroad, and overseas film critics listed it as the first of the top ten business cards of Chinese films. As an artistic treasure, it has earned Fei Mu a worldwide reputation for Chinese films. The reason why "Spring in a Small Town" has such a long-term vitality is that it expresses a feeling, moral consciousness and national psychological characteristics and behavior that have the universality of human nature. At the same time, this kind of expression is embedded in a beautiful, elegant and exquisite film art form, and the truth of human nature and artistic beauty have reached a harmonious unity.

　　Fei Mu once pointed out: "Confucius's philosophy of life, ethical principles, and all the morality of human beings have formed an invisible religion that has dominated the spiritual life of the Chinese nation for 2,000 years. In order to show the spiritual life of the nation, Fei Mu consistently expressed the Confucian philosophical ideas and ethical concepts represented by Confucius in his films, which set him apart from other Chinese film directors in the 1930s and 1940s. In "Spring in a Small Town", this feature has further developed into a microscopic world, that is, from the perspective of people's inner world, to explore the contradiction between the emotional world and reality, revealing people's inner moral consciousness, so as to reflect the core idea of the film that Fei Mu has repeatedly emphasized, the Confucian morality, "ending with courtesy and righteousness".

　　"Spring in a Small Town" affirms people's spiritual needs, emotional needs, and human needs. Watching the heroine Yuwen struggle to inhale a breath of fresh air in a suffocating environment, watching her struggle in a married life with little affection, who can not think that her desire for love and the pursuit of a free life are completely legitimate and humane? But at the same time, the film places this need for human nature under the control of Confucian ethics, indicating that people's feelings should be constrained by etiquette and righteousness, and behavior should conform to moral norms. The contradiction between love and reason and the sense of moral responsibility that existed in Yuwen's heart from beginning to end, in Yuwen, in Zhichen, and even in Liyan's soul, all show this. "Spring in a Small Town" tells people through the "cold treatment" of jade patterns and Zhichen's emotional outbursts and the ending of the husband and wife sending Zhichen away, "ending with affection and righteousness" is in line with moral norms and people's inner moral consciousness; Mutual understanding and mutual communication between people is an effective way to adjust interpersonal relationships (including husband and wife relationships).

　　It should be pointed out that in the handling of the contradiction between emotion and etiquette, the film properly grasps the boundary between the acceptable moral consciousness and the feudal etiquette that binds human nature. It does not present the husband's courtesy as a villain, or an obnoxious person, but rather highlights his kindness, weakness, and incompetence, his need for sympathy and his desire to love. This makes one feel that it is cruel and inhumane to abandon such a person, and that only love and communication are the right choice. This kind of ideological style of pursuing perfect personality and sincere humanity in a painful and incomplete life is most admired by director Fei Mu, and it is also the touching power of "Spring in a Small Town".

　　Naturally, in today's view, several adults, love dare not love, can not be separated, self-repression, torture each other, live really bitter and tired. But it is difficult to say that this is not a true portrayal of the life of Chinese intellectuals who grew up under the influence of traditional culture in that era. It is also difficult to say that this is not the behavior pattern of some people in the world today and in the future. Perhaps it is this kind of authenticity that makes it difficult for later admirers to accept and has to accept, which makes "Spring in a Small Town" deeply moving.

　　Fei Mu is not the first person to use movies to show people's emotional entanglements and reasonable conflicts, but it is rare in the history of Chinese cinema to show such delicacy and moving as "Spring in a Small Town". The most obvious features of the film in terms of artistic style are "purification" and "aesthetic beauty".

　　Spring in a Small Town is written about only five people, a wife, husband, friend, sister, and a servant. Only these five people (and a chicken) appear on the screen, and there are no other creatures in the town. Using this purified environmental background and character relationships, the film concentrates on fully demonstrating the rich emotional relationships between the characters - husband and wife, lover, friend, brother and sister, and the mutual entanglement and contradiction between them. Similarly, the film also purifies the relationship between the characters and social life. Although it is a small city in Jiangnan after the war, the life of the characters in the small city is out of touch with the entire social life, and their duty seems to be to perform a "drama" of lingering pity, and the whole embodiment of people as a society is in their humanity. Such a pure and pure emotional drama that is not involved in current affairs, in the turbulent China of 1948, it is difficult to meet Zhiyin, but it has won the influence beyond time and space. Probably this is where director Fei Mu 's painstaking efforts to "purify" lie.

　　The purified characters and emotions are expressed in the aesthetic screen shape, which undoubtedly makes "Spring in a Small Town" have a strong artistic appeal. Fei Mu once made it clear that he wanted to make "Spring in a Small Town" very beautiful and beautiful. Indeed, it is. The simple and natural performance of the actors in the film; Realistic and vivid environmental modeling; Stretch long roll flat shake long lens; Time and space transformation bold and free lens assembly; With the help of Chinese painting's use of lines and blanks, just looking at a beautiful picture, even the composition of the picture and the use of ingenious monologues, all show director Fei Mu's deliberate pursuit of the beauty of the visual image of the film, and he already has a visual art expression that is not inferior to that of any world-class master at that time. It is in this sense that "Spring in a Small Town" is aesthetic and takes the pursuit of beauty as the highest artistic criterion. The perfect combination of the modeling means of beauty and the revelation of the rich inner world of the characters and the expression of the true feelings of the characters makes the "aesthetic beauty" expressed in "Spring in a Small Town" be beautiful for the truth, for the love and beauty, for the nature and beauty, rather than for the beauty and beauty. The use of film art means soaked in traditional Chinese aesthetics to express the emotional ethics of Chinese intellectuals, so that "Spring in a Small Town" has the artistic conception of Chinese poetry and Chinese painting, which is subtle and distant, and has endless charm.