spring in a small town

the acting style is very theatrical, with long pauses and very discrete movements, head turns, etc.

there is one long shot, of two of the characters walking beside each other down a forest path, that really struck me.... the man tries to grab the woman's arm, she accepts, but then demurs, and runs ahead. despite this game the moment is enchanted and for once in the film (because they're alone, away from her husband) the stakes seem low, there isn't such a feeling of foreboding.

i think this film is very important to contemporary chinese critics and directors like jia zhang-ke because (a) it is very interior, it is a melodrama that traces very subtle feelings, whereas chinese cinema in the revolutionary era was largely exterior; (b) it marks a brief (and abortive) dalliance of the chinese cinema with forms other than those borrowed or adapted from hollywood--i.e. it relates more to developments in european art cinema, something that again wouldn't be apparent in the revolutionary era.

also it is beautiful.

the only "flaw" was a very primitive sound mix which might have just been a result of what the director had available.... but i got over this pretty quickly.

yo am. i'm in paris! only for another day though. are you still here?

of course... send me an email! i don't have a phone, but perhaps you do and i can call from a cabine?

too bad you missed this flick last night, it was incredible...

how about the weather eh

i dont have a phone either amst! uh...email me!

leaving paris tomorrow at 6

I saw the remake (Springtime). I thought the Small Town bit was a misnomer. More Springtime in ahouse with four people in. Its a very tense melodrama which did not really work in this version. I can imagine how, with a bit more claustrophobia, it could be compelling. But very stagey.

Would like to see origianl to comapre.

in the original too there is only the faintest suggestion of any "town" (we see the wife arrive at the wall near the house with a basket of vegetables, presumably bought at a market in town) ... the rotting and half-destroyed old manor is the (very memorable) location for the film, excepting the pivotal location of the t own wall and a few shots on a river and in the forest.

Sounds like not much of a make-over then. There just seemed something slightly wrong with some of the shots and acting. Ill fella seemed like too much of a spoilt brat to ever have been attractive.

I've seen both; unfortunately the original, which will apparently get a proper release next year, is currently generall seen as a version from Australian TV (there are only like two prints).

Both are really quite similar, but I think the acting in the second appealed to me more, was less histrionic. In some ways it's like comparing Sirk and Haynes, but I spose the real comparison is 'In the Mood For Love' -- also shot by (Hou collaborator) Mark Lee Ping Bing.

I didn't think it was stagey because the nuances of the camerawork, and the camera is almost always moving, were just incredible, the action and the camerawork with integrated in a very distinctive, effective way. There's oddly more of a suggestion of the war that's just ended in the new version -- but not much more.

(I also think I saw it at a really bad time, I was knackered and don't think necessarily I can do it that much justice as I was dropping off. Though I did not see it in the Mogodon of cinema that is the Renoir).

It's on DVD now and I'd give it anutha chance -- it's definitely in my top ten for this year. Maybe if I saw a better print of the original that would change, but I doubt it -- the camera is more supple, and I think the acting is too, in the newie. It's by the director of 'The Blue Kite' which is one of those epics of post-revolutionary China from the early '90s. It was banned and he had trouble getting work.

i'll try to track down the tian remake. but first i'll see the original again, in mid-jan., at the cinematheque francaise.

i don't know where the print they are using comes from, but it had french not english subtitles and was on 35.

Presumably there's a fair amount of mystique, but at the screening I was at they said there were two prints, one of which was too fuxxored to be flown about too much, and one of which was at that point in time (July) being used to strike a new print which will be out next year. R-Baum himself has only seen the Australian TV version. So maybe yours was found in Langlois' airing cupboard!

maybe they mean two original copies (i.e. two prints from which decent copies can be made), or two english-titled prints. i doubt there are only two prints of the film existing in the world.

Probably -- I suppose they were trying to hype it up a bit plus make up for the fact we had to watch this shitty NTSC versh.