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The reason for this is that whilst Hong Kong has been reunited with China for well over a decade now, there are still two fundamentally different traditions in terms of film, so this week we’re going to take a look at mainland China whilst focusing on an old forgotten classic (Spring in a Small Town) and a true masterpiece (Raise The Red Lantern).
Director: Mu Fei
Having been largely ignored for decades, Spring in a Small Town has only recently earned its rightful place in the annals of cinematic history. Involving just five characters, it tells of concealed emotions, guilt and tested loyalty in tattered post-war China.
Mu Fei’s film centres around a young woman named Wei Wei who is struggling with a loveless marriage to a sick and feeble (but caring) man. However, when an old friend comes to visit, she is trapped between her own desires and her loyalty to her husband. Told with great simplicity and care, it soon moves far beyond simple melodrama. The conflicted emotions and concerns of all the characters becomes truly fascinating as they struggle to help those around them often more than themselves. The characters who are central to the film are all fully developed and examined once they have been seamlessly introduced in a superb opening voiceover.
However, it is a film that has dated with time and many may find its slender pace and near total absence of soundtrack off-putting. Yet it is a film which also depicts the struggling emotions of inner guilt, turmoil and bitter regret that we all experience in our lives, as well as being a film whose clear influence on many later directors is all too obvious. Overall, despite its dated appearance, Spring in a Small Town does make for a deeply moving and memorable experience.
Director: Zhang Yimou
Most of us will be aware of Zhang Yimou because of his foray into the wuxia genre which gave us Hero and House of Flying Daggers. In both of these he demonstrated a great prowess in the realms of cinematography making heavy use of colours as a means to accentuate the emotional power of the scenes. This ability of his was what set him apart from other Fifth Generation Chinese directors and was first perfected in his masterpiece Raise The Red Lantern.
Featuring an exemplary Gong Li as the recently married Songlian, the fourth wife of the wealthy Master Chen, we watch as she negotiates this world where wives are pitted against each other for the affections of their husband. The title itself is derived from the brightly coloured lanterns which are lit by the abode of whichever wife the master has chosen to spend that night with, with the spoils for the wife being a sensuous foot massage and her choice of food for the entire palace for the proceeding day. These small goals are the only powers available to the women meaning that some are willing to do whatever it takes to secure these luxuries.
By never having the film leave the compound, Yimou convincingly creates the sense of claustrophobia that eventually claims the lead character’s sanity. This leads to one of the saddest credit sequences ever devised with the broken woman, having donned her old school uniform, wandering aimlessly around the courtyard as we watch on despairingly.
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