Spring in a Small Town (1948)

Recommended

China

Feature Film

Original Title: 小城之春

Director: Fei Mu

Writer: Li Tianji

Cinematographer: Li Shengwei

Composer: Huang Yijun

Cast: Wei Wei, Zhang Hongmei, Li Wei, Zhang Hongmei, Cui Chaoming

Generally considered one of the greats of Chinese cinema, this intimate chamber piece – adapted from the same source story as Tian Zhuangzhuang’s sublime Springtime in a Small Town (2002), delicately depicting a ménage-a-trois against the backdrop of an isolated, crumbling, post-war, middle-class household – lacks the lyrical beauty of its successor, and at times is a little staid, but is, never the less, affecting. Iain.Stott