DVD Review: Fei Mu's SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN From The BFI

Hailed as the greatest Chinese film ever made, Fei Mu's 1948 melodrama Spring In A Small Town arrives on DVD for the first time in the UK, courtesy of the BFI. A heartbreaking tale of loyalty, yearning and resilience in the wake of the Second World War, Fei's film was buried by the Communist Party and has only reemerged in recent years, where it is garnering deserved comparisons with the work of filmmakers like Ozu Yasujiro and Wong Kar Wai.

In a nondescript region of post-war China, Yuwen (Wei Wei) lives a simple and somewhat isolated life. Married to the once-rich Liyan (Shi Yu), whose health has steadily declined, along with his wealth, during the eight years of their union, Yuwen's role is now little more than live-in carer. Liyan is frail and distant, spending his days looking over the ruins of his estate and struggling with tuberculosis and a bad heart. Living with them is Liyan's precocious teenage sister, Xiao (Zhang Hongmei) and their manservant, Laohuang (Cao Chaoming). Yuwen and Liyan have no children of their own, and it seems unlikely Liyan will ever have the strength to give her any.

Enter Liyan's old college friend, Zhang Zhichen (Li Wei), a somewhat successful doctor from Shanghai. Having not seen each other since before the war, Zhang is unaware that Liyan is ill or that he has taken a wife. The tragedy is set in motion when it is immediately revealed that Zhang and Yuwen grew up next door to each other, and were in fact childhood sweethearts. Zhang's arrival soon awakens long-buried feelings in both Yuwen and himself, and with Liyan's condition worsening, there seems little reason for them not to rekindle their romance. However, life is never that simple and Xiao's imminent sixteenth birthday only serves to further complicate matters as Liyan is determined to see her married off before he dies.

One of the foremost director's of China's pre-Communist era, Fei Mu was born and raised in Shanghai, making a name for himself with a string of social realist dramas and lavish costume epics. His first film, Night In The City was made when the fledgling filmmaker was just 27, and in 1940 he directed Confucius, long thought lost and recently restored. His masterpiece, however, is undoubtedly Spring In A Small Town, a drama that dared to leave the ravages of war in its periphery, and instead concentrate on a delicate and intimate story of love and duty. 

Fei beautifully uses a few carefully presented spaces in order to convey the emotional turmoil of his characters. Liyan's house may look like a comfortable, perhaps even lavish residence - when compared to the sparse simplicity of the rest of the town - but on further inspection it is closer to a gilded cage or even a prison for its residents. Yuwen and Liyan sleep in separate rooms, each lit harshly through decorated window shutters bearing more than a passing resemblance to bars. They are trapped in cells, prisoners of their desperate circumstances, with only innocent Xiao's room seemingly able to receive direct sunlight - conveying freedom, and promise of a bright future.

Yuwen seeks solace not in her room, but on the overgrown and dilapidated city wall, along which she walks each day on her way in and out of town. Here Fei carefully positions his camera at ground level, capturing Yuwen against the vast openness of the sky. Here is where she dreams, where she can escape her stifling situation, if only for a few moments. It is here where she will later share her most intimate moments with Zhang - a sanctuary that Zhang and Xiao almost ruin when they too take a walk there.

Meanwhile, Liyan remains confined to the garden - his once-great dynasty reduced to rubble by the war. His ill health prohibits Liyan from working or venturing further afield - a curse that forces him to face the collapse of his legacy and family, while rendering him helpless to do anything about it. It is Yuwen, and her alone, who can decide Liyan's fate - making her own personal quandary all the more tragic. 

Therefore it is to Fei's credit that Zhang is not demonised. Li Tianji's script could so easily have painted him as a corrupting influence, a modern outsider who capitalises on his friend's weak state to snatch back his former belle, but instead Zhang is a stand-up guy, who repeatedly comes to Liyan's aide and never forces Yuwen's hand. Also telling is how he deals with the coquettish Xiao, who understands perfectly the future opportunities Zhang represents for her.

Sadly, Spring In A Small Town's lack of overtly leftist content inspired the incoming Communist regime to deem the film reactionary, and it largely disappeared shortly after its release. Thankfully in the 1980s, the China Film Archive oversaw a restoration of the film, which brought it back into the public consciousness, so much so that in 2002 it was remade by Tian Zhuangzhuang as Springtime in a Small Town. In 2005, a list of the 100 best Chinese films was published by the Hong Kong Film Awards Association, with Spring In A Small Town in first place, ahead of John Woo's A Better Tomorrow and Wong Kar Wai's Days Of Being Wild.

The BFI's new DVD release of the China Film Archive's restored version of Spring In A Small Town should be of great interest to lovers of classic Asian cinema, and in particular those with an appreciation for the likes of Japanese masters Ozu and Mizoguchi Kenji. Chinese directors from Wong Kar Wai to Chen Kaige and Jia Zhangke have praised the film and cited it as a key influence on their work. In particular it is easy to see the shadow of this film hanging over Wong's wonderful In The Mood For Love. 

Decades of neglect have inevitably taken their toll on Spring In A Small Town, and there is some damage to the image and occasional audio dropouts along the way which even the most extensive and skilful restoration would be unable to replace. However, absolute audio and visual perfection should come as a secondary concern to the simple survival of such an important, influential and incredibly powerful film. This BFI release also includes two shorts, the 1933 silent A Small Town In China - shot by European missionaries and showing their levels of integration in pre-war China; also the 1946 Verity Films short This Is China provides a more educational, newsreel style look at the country immediately following the end of WWII, but tellingly before the Cultural Revolution of 1949. Both prove enjoyable additions to this all-round excellent release.

Spring In A Small Town is released on DVD in the UK from the BFI on Monday 23 February.