SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN is a quiet film, a sad film, a heartbreaking film about missed opportunities, the futility of secrecy, and the compromises of adulthood.
It’s 1948. The Japanese are out of China and the Maoists have yet to consolidate their power. In the ruins of what was once a fine home live Liyan (Shi Yu) and Yuwen (Wei Wei), six years into a marriage marked more by duty and sadness than anything else. Liyan’s teenaged sister, Xiu (Zhang Hongmei) and family servant Huang (Cui Chaoming) round out the household. Liyan’s a broken man, his (mild) tuberculosis serving as a ready excuse to flee the crumbling world around him and take refuge in his garden. But Yuwen is very much alive, though she seeks to bury her vitality in her walks and her chores. Then, Zhichen (Li Wei), Liyan’s boyhood friend, appears after over a decade away. Zhichen and Yuwen grew up together. They are clearly, inescapably, forever in love.
That’s the first fifteen minutes.
But SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN isn’t just about love denied. It’s about the sacrifices, big and small, we make to get through the day, the week, the month, the year. It’s about the hidden gesture, about intuition, about how those who love us know us better than we think they do. It’s about all those little moments that make up a life, and the big ones that shape it. SPRING IN A SMALL TOWN is beautiful, not just in the portraits it creates, but in its compassion and understanding for its subjects. It’s an unforgettable film, one worth watching.
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