Capital Celluloid 2014 - Day 189: Wed Jul 9

Spring in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948): BFI Southbank, 8.50pm


This film, the highlight of the Century of Chinese Cinema season, starts an extended run at BFI Southbank on June 19. Details here.

Time Out review:
The crowning achievement of one of China's finest directors, this unique film both reflects and dissects the mood of helpless impotence which afflicted many Chinese in the years after the war. After a 10-year absence, a doctor visits a married couple living in a bomb-scarred country town. The husband is a broken man, close to suicide; the wife was once his lover and they start to drift back into an affair under the nose of her husband. The sense of frustration and enervation is palpable, underlined by Fei's brilliant idea to use dissolves within scenes, but the counter-current of renascent desire (sparked by Wei Wei's phenomenal performance as the wife) makes this also a very sensual movie.
Tony Rayns

Here is an extract.

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