Movie Review: Spring Subway (Chinese)

It is with trepidation that I write this review of my favorite movie.

Which is probably fitting, because so much of it is taken up by questions of fear, the impulse to speak (versus the impulse to be well-thought-of, to hide what seems like a shameful truth) and the results of people's reactions to speaking about or from fear.

It's a Chinese film, which viewers should bear in mind; the cultural differences don't overshadow the "universal" concerns of the characters, and anyone should be able to understand the basic plot of the movie without extensive knowledge of Chinese culture -- but I'm not sure a viewer can really empathize with Jianbin's (the husband's) dilemma without at least a cursory understanding of what it means to speak directly in Chinese culture. It's harder than all but the most painfully shy Americans can understand.

Amid flashbacks to the happy couple arriving in Beijing young and carefree seven years earlier, we learn that Jianbin and his wife, Xiaohui, seem to be drifting apart. They each speak directly to the camera -- Jianbin shyly, Xiaohui candidly -- about how they feel about their marriage, their fears that the other is about to throw in the towel, their desires to start other relationships.

The main tension in their relationship, and in the movie, results from Jianbin's having been laid off three months before the events of the movie, but not telling Xiaohiu about it. He imagines scenarios in which he tells her and she accepts and embraces him -- and ones in which she berates him for being defective. He brings himself to the point of almost telling her half a dozen times, but cannot; instead, he dresses as if for work every day and rides the subway around the city, killing time and listening in on others' conversations.

From Jianbin's peregrinations, we learn about two other couples at the beginnings of their relationships. The other four people are well-developed enough to catch our attention, but not enough to satisfy us. At the end of the movie, I find myself wondering what happened to them, but I consider this a strength rather than a weakness, and a sign of being true-to-life. (How many of us get total closure on conversations we overhear on a subway?)

The soundtrack carries the subway scenes, knitting together the forced intimacy of the interior of a subway car with the flash-and-dash exterior of Beijing's new subway. It moves us through the city and through time, refreshing instead of irritating (which is rare for moving-along-montage music).

Xiaohui and Jianbin both consider affairs: Xiaohui with a client of hers named "Tiger," Jianbin with an injured kindergarten teacher he learned about from one of the four subway characters. They each find respite in their flirtations with infidelity, but only because their own relationship is so intensely fraught with conflict -- mostly internal, and mostly Jianbin's.

The fact that they experience this conflict as fading love, as a "seven year itch" or feeling neutral toward each other, strikes me as truth. They each wonder whether the relationship, so apparently devoid of love and hope, is worth it, but neither can address the question directly. Jianbin comes home from riding the subway one night to find Tiger's shoes outside his door -- Chinese often remove their shoes when they enter a home -- and moves one; Xiaohiu, letting Tiger out after a friendly get-together, sees that it has been moved and knows that Jianbin has been by. Still, they do not discuss it.

In one scene, Xiaohui tries to discuss the relationship casually, attempting to make light of what weighs on them both, at dinner. She laughs half-heartedly, making an effort; she begins to talk more directly, but falters as Jianbin, sitting across from her, stuffs vegetables into his mouth, barely chewing and not swallowing at all. They sit in silence as he chews. The scene is painful to watch; as viewers, we know what Xiaohui wants to say, and that Jianbin does not need to fear it -- but we also know that he expects her to admit to an affair, and that he does not feel he could handle this knowledge.

In a flashback, Jianbin and Xiaohui lay in their bathtub, relaxing and talking, and Xiaohui asks a riddle: If a stick of bamboo has a bitter end and a sweet end, which one do you eat first? The bitter, Jianbin answers, and Xiaohui says he is a pessimist. She splashes him, laughing, and the solemnity vanishes -- but it sticks with the viewer, and Jianbin's answer seems to give us a window into how he thinks.

It may tell us more about Xiaohui, though. I thought about this riddle for a long time after my second or third viewing of the movie: Why would someone who ate the bitter before the sweet be a pessimist? That's what I would do; I'd use the sweet as a reward for having endured the bitter. It eventually occurred to me that perhaps the bitter would not need to be endured -- an optimist may eat the sweet first in the belief that the bitter would never have to be eaten. Perhaps more sweet was to come.

The gestures toward affairs -- neither of which is consummated -- become a way for both Jianbin and Xiaohui to express themselves without fear. Xiaohui realizes, talking to Tiger, that she does still love Jianbin; Jianbin is able to tell the injured kindergarten teacher, who has been temporarily blinded, secrets that he had long kept hidden. Having said these things, they are able to approach each other more honestly in the end, despite the still-intense conflict in their relationship.

The resolution of their relationship is metaphorical, though I believe it's clear what happens in the end. (One of my Chinese students, though, said it was "a sad movie" because she thought they broke up in the end; I had to rethink my interpretation after this, but I still think it's clear that they stay together.)

There is no happily-ever-after for Spring Subway, whose title would be better translated as "Heading toward Spring Subway," but there is a renewed sense of hope, and that also strikes me as true. Jianbin and Xiaohui, like people in real-life relationships, do not need to be perfect, or even "perfectly committed" like the couples conveniently left at the meeting point at the end of most romantic comedies. They need to be willing to work past each other's -- and, more importantly, their own -- issues to reconnect with each other and make the relationship work. They are, and they do, and the result is affecting and inspiring.

That's my kind of happy ending.