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My journey to China with the Chinese American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA) late in 2011 brought with it many novel adventures and pleasures: an introduction to a part of the world and a country I had never before seen; a group of analysts dedicated to pro-bono supervising, teaching, and treating Chinese students (via Skype) intent on learning psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice; an enriching, hands-on cultural experience2 that made real what had previously been limited to reading books and viewing films.
My introduction3 to film director Fei Mu and his classic movie, Spring in a Small Town, remains one of several memorable highlights of my three-week visit. Produced in 1948, Fei Mu's minimalist film gem had been censored by the Chinese Communist government, which considered it a reactionary work of art marred by a lack of political content, and thus, counter-revolutionary. The Leftists, too, branded it rightist ideology because of its focus on the individual rather than the harsh life of the working-class populace. Somehow the larger, but furtive political implications of this film, which I will discuss shortly, slipped by the government censors' visual field. For all that, the film remained in obscurity, unseen by both film critic and film enthusiast alike, until 2005 when the Hong Kong Film Critics Society selected it best Chinese-language film of all time.