Spring in a Small Town

Fei Mu's 1948 masterpiece, regularly named the greatest Chinese film ever made. In a ruined house in a war-scarred provincial town, Zhou Yuwen (Wei Wei) cares for her invalid husband while drifting through a marriage emptied of love — until Zhang Zhichen (Shi Yu), her husband's old friend and her own first love, arrives as a visiting doctor. What follows is almost unbearably restrained: long walks on the ruined city wall, glances held a beat too long, and a narration that confesses what the characters cannot say. Fei Mu films adulterous longing without a single transgressive act, and the result influenced generations of Chinese-language cinema. Made on the eve of revolution and rediscovered decades later, the film is in the public domain.