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Springtime in a Boring Town
Tuesday, June 14, 2005-1:10 PM
After a nine-year hiatus from making films, Tian Zhuang Zhuang's comeback effort "Springtime in a Small Town" fell well short of my high expectations.
I picked up the movie at my favorite local DVD shop. I was worried that this particular shop had stopped selling DVD's when upon one visit I noticed that all the DVD's had been removed from the shelves. Maybe a police raid forced them to temporarily ditch their DVD stock. Nonetheless, they appear to be back in business.
The DVD's packaging made clear that "Springtime in a Small Town" was by Tian Zhuang Zhuang, the director of "The Blue Kite". Despite the fact that I was buying the DVD in China, this particular copy (or the copy it was pirated from) was obviously being marketed to a foreign audience.
Maybe that's because this film was never really intended for a domestic audience anyways. Natasha was relieved when I told her I'd watch this movie by myself if she didn't want to see it.
I don't know if she could have sat through it anyway. It took me two attempts to finish the movie. The first time I put the movie in the DVD player, I only got twenty minutes into the movie before I gave up. The second time, about an hour and a half into it, I almost gave up again until I heard one of the characters say he was heading back to Shanghai, signaling an imminent end.
The movie is a tribute to China's pioneering filmmakers. Actually, the movie itself is a remake of an older movie. But that doesn't make it interesting.
I think the name for a movie like this is a "chamber piece". With the exception of a dancing scene about an hour into the movie, only five actors appear on screen. Three of the actors are involved in the most boring love triangle in the history of cinema.
What makes this film so unbearable are all the long stretches of silence. In a film like "Yi Yi", I had a lot of patience for that sort of thing. Maybe it's because in that film, there was actually something to consider while the actors weren't saying anything.
But in this film, the long stretches of silence seem only to serve the purpose of testing how patient the audience is.
There are perhaps two reasons someone might want to see this movie. First, the dialogue is very clear, very standard, and very easy to understand. This movie is good to watch to practice your Chinese.
Second, if you're in the middle of a redecorating operation and you want some ideas about how to decorate your house to look like a traditional Chinese abode, you could get some ideas from this movie.
Other than that, if this movie does have any redeeming qualities, I missed them. "The Blue Kite" is a good movie. "Springtime in a Small Town" is torture.
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