Spring Fever

In Nanjing a woman suspects her husband is seeing someone and hires a detective. The detective follows him and sees that the affair is with a man. Then the detective enters that relationship himself. From there the film drops the question of fidelity entirely and follows three people tangling with one another. The subject is not infidelity but the exhaustion of a desire that has to stay hidden. The characters are constantly moving: nightclubs, buses, cheap hotels. None of them is at ease in their own home, and the film builds that unease through space. The form is raw. It was shot handheld on small digital cameras in low light; the image is often grainy and the framing unsteady. That is as much necessity as style. The story of the production matters as much as the film. Lou Ye had been banned from making films in China for five years because of his previous work. He shot this one secretly in Nanjing in defiance of that ban, as a Hong Kong and French co-production. It competed at Cannes in 2009 and the writer Mei Feng won the best screenplay award. Qin Hao, Chen Sicheng and Tan Zhuo lead. Who it is for: viewers who like Chinese independent cinema and formally raw films. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a clear narrative; the film does not explain its transitions between characters and is scattered by design.