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Amos Lassen wrote on 05/18/2010:

"Spring Fever"

A Ménage A Trois

Amos Lassen

"Spring Fever" is Lou Ye's first film after having been banned from making films in China because of his explicit sex scenes. Unfortunately it is not very good. He takes a look at gay sex this time in the film he made in central China and he attempts to create an atmosphere by which his characters who are caught up in a metaphysical fever, become involved in sexual situations. We watch a time of year when nature seems to take over and there is a lot of rain and haze. It as if we are to think about the relationship between nature and man.
The film begins with nudity. Wang Ping (Wu Wei) is married but he has a male lover, Jiang Cheng (Qin Hao) and he does not know that his wife, Lin Xue (Jiang Jiaqi) is having him followed by someone who takes pictures of the two men together. The three have dinner together and the wife attacks the husband for his unfaithfulness and then she humiliates him at the place where he works. There are wonderful scenes but the rest of the film never again reaches that level. Complications ensue and the film seems to never want to end. The director is filled with poetry, some of which seeps onto the screen and the film looks at how cruel emotions can be.
The music is wonderful and fits the film perfectly. There were times I felt I was watching a documentary because of the way the filming presented the ideas to us. I also found myself to be at one with the characters, occasionally, but by and large I was isolated from them. Melancholy takes over the film and what could have been very strong and powerful becomes like a television soap opera. I believe the film is meant to be impressionistic and this is something that is very hard to capture. Here it was not.