The new version of Spring in a Small Town has been screened throughout China.

By TANG YUANKAI

After ten years of silence since his Blue Kite of 1992, earlier this year Tian Zhuangzhuang, one of the most respected of China's fifth-generation directors, made his version of Spring in a Small Town. A classic film originally directed by Fei Mu in 1948, it is Tian's favorite. He has watched the film at least once a year for the past decade, each time with fresh anticipation. It was in the winter of 2000 that his admiration for the film finally led him to make his own version of it. A few months later he received the adapted screenplay from popular writer A Cheng, and a 4.5 million yuan investment from his former classmate, woman director Li Shaohong.

Despite a glittering production unit that included international prize winners Li Pingbin, cinematographer for In the Mood for Love, and Ye Jintian, art advisor for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, the second shooting of Spring in a Small Town was an agonizingly exacting, yet unrewarding task. In the eyes of film lovers, a remake seldom measures up to the original. Tian explained his motive: "I can see numerous flaws in all the films I have directed. I believe the experience of re-shooting Spring in a Small Town will be of benefit to my future creation."

A still from the Spring re-make.

The original film is consummate in both plot and structure, to the extent that finding any kind of new perspective seemed impossible. During the month of shooting Tian needed to take a complete departure from his accustomed techniques and come up with new ideas. Members of the unit were of immeasurable help. A Cheng set the angle of revision. Ye Jintian balanced successfully the ambience between real life and art. Li Pingbin consciously leaves sufficient space in each scene for the imagination - a style perfectly suited to the film's character.

The Spring in a Small Town of 50 years ago was distinctive for its experimental quality, such as long shots, and scenes from stage drama, the most unprecedented aspect being its non-narrative pattern. The film's story line covers a period of five days, and involves a cast of five people -- a married couple, the husband's younger sister, a guest, and a servant. Neither the plot nor the scenes are complete. It is about a family in decline in southern China, after the War of Resistance against Japan. The husband is a chronic invalid, and consequently depressive. His wife meekly and unquestioningly fulfills her marital duty of caring for him. One day the husband's classmate, also the former lover of his wife, pays a visit, effectively creating a storm that breaks up the doldrums of life in their dilapidated courtyard. After a mental struggle he chooses to leave, after which, it is as if nothing ever happened to disturb the placidity in this small town. The film's understated, unemotional style successfully intimates the psychological conflicts of each of its characters, through subtle changes in their expression, demeanor and cast of eye.

Tian Zhuangzhuang at work.

The emotional turmoil over these five days gives a deep insight into each character's attitude towards their feelings and how they deal with them. In this respect there is, therefore, ample scope for research and exploration by Tian Zhuangzhuang. Tian is particularly interested in the inextricably intertwined relationship between the three main characters. The conflict between sense and sensibility they all experience is further intensified by the restraints of 1940s social mores that proscribe overt action or expression of emotion.

The film is not about love affairs. Its intention is to dissect the human psychology of that age, particularly of intellectuals. As none of the characters is

able to give vent to the distress, perplexity and depression they feel inwardly, these feelings eventually evolve into an emotional vortex. The picture thus hints at the nameless dread Chinese intellectuals harbor about the future.

When set in an age characterized by impulse and material desire, the focus of the new-version Spring in a Small Town shifts to morality and ethics. But Director Tian does not appear to expect his audience to appreciate a film that seeks a balance between ethics and human lust. He seems to regard humankind these days as lost, incapable of making an appropriate assessment of themselves. His desire is for the audience to accept a story from 50 years ago equably and with good humor. This was his approach during the shooting of this film. In the spirit of "the purer motive, the better film," Tian was completely absorbed in shooting during the month the film took. He further explained: "You must never be hasty when shooting a film. In order to enjoy it to the full, you must be patient."

Tian's "Spring" won the San Marco Award to the Film at the 59th Venice Film Festival.

It is obvious that Tian re-produced Spring in a Small Town, in his own words, "without any commercial intention." He was in effect paying tribute to Fei Mu and the cinematic artform. Tribute and study are, however, the director's personal affair, and have little bearing on the audience, that goes to a movie theater in the hopes of seeing something fresh and enlivening. Tian has indeed made commendable innovations in his "Spring."

The new-version discards the first-person voice-over of the actress, instead revealing its content through plot and performance. The story is from the standpoint of an intellectual fly-on-the-wall, rather than a woman. Few films have ever employed this angle. Among the fifth-generation directors Chen Kaige is adept at the "micro cultural" approach, while Zhang Yimou has been labeled a "pseudo-folklore" specialist. Film-makers of the sixth generation are regarded as going for an "indy" angle. In Tian's version of Spring in a Small Town the characters' demeanor is one of nonchalance, restrained passion, melancholy, and helplessness, but with no attempt to examine or question. Such is the fatalism of the Chinese literati.