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Almost like a silent movie, and I liked it


The copy I saw was rather poor quality, video often had spots appearing on it, and audio was completely missing in several scenes. I don't know if there is a better quality version available. But actually this poor quality created some interesting "silent" scenes. For instance, people walking in nature and you can see that wind is blowing and river is flowing, but none of it can be heard, when somebody throws a rock, that cannot be heard either, its all silent. Only the voices of people can be heard, when they talk, and some occasional music. I'm sure it wasn't meant to be like that, but seems that time has erased almost all the backgound noise from this film. I guess it could be "restored" but maybe it should be kept like it is.

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I have also seen a copy similar to what you have described, where there is occasionally no audible sound in some scenes. I agree that it gave Spring in a Small Town a poignant quality. However, the acting also played a part in this. The facial expression Yuwen makes ever wishing her husband dead was visually striking.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not.

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The silent scenes are actually deliberate, noticeably in the scene near the end when Yuwen goes to Zhichen's room after the drunken birthday party. I have seen the restored version, the quality was exceptional.

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I've just watched what I presume to have been the restored version, broadcast on Film4 in the UK. The sound aspect of the film was very understated for sure, but what caught my 'eye' most was the peculiar quality of the spoken part of the soundtrack. The dialogue sounded like it was recorded from the bottom of a well or something, with a peculiar tinny, distant and almost echoey quality to it. Presumably that is an artefact of the restoration.

I also assume that the restoration has impacted on the incidental noises in the soundtrack, so potentially the 'silent' scenes were not intended to be like that. I think this is made clear when Zhang, on his first night, asks what a noise is - its a warning that the electricity is about to go off. He describes it as sounding like an air raid siren, but we, the viewers, can't hear a thing.

It is interesting to watch the film with such little incidental noise, although it is still there, at least at times, even in scenes that could easily pass as silent. But it dies leave me wondering what this would originally have been like.

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