孔雀 Peacock

The film 'Peacock’ is the story of three children in an ordinary family in an obscure, remote, post-industrial city in Central China in the 1970s and 1980s. One of the features of the film is a no-celebrity cast, which according to Gu Changwei, the director, is a positive aspect of the film. Grim and nearly silent, the film is set in northern China in the 1970s and follows the difficult experiences of three siblings. When the characters actually do speak, they speak Standard Chinese with an almost incomprehensible Henan accent.


The film has the potential to captivate people the world over. It brings viewers into a small Chinese city and inspires familiarity with the rhythms of everyday existence, with people's dreams, shortcomings and illusions in a way that is universal. For nearly 2 1/2 hours, one lives a Chinese life that is both recognizable and revelatory. Put another way, theatrical prospects look excellent in markets outside Asia. About all that is missing are stars. Then again, when a Chinese film starring Zhang Ziyi showed in Berlin in 2000, no one knew her, either.
A family enjoys an evening meal on a communal balcony outside their humble flat in the late 1970s. The Cultural Revolution has ended, and the country is in transition from a planned to a market economy. From this exact moment in time, the film takes up separately the stories of each of the family's three children. (Clearly, the stories predate the governmental decree of one family/one child.)
First comes the daughter, a dreamy girl whose desires always outrun her achievements. Next, the film backtracks to that dinner to glimpse the life of the older brother, whose weight and mental handicap embarrass his two siblings. Finally, the film assesses how humiliations over his brother and sadness over his sister's disillusionment affect the younger brother.
The film contains moments that feel surreal yet are not. A plane flies overhead and paratroopers fall from the sky. One nearly lands on Weihong (Zhang Jingchu). Her life is transformed. She too wants to jump out of airplanes. And the paratrooper she meets ever so briefly becomes a romantic ideal no man ever will match. Her application to the air force goes nowhere, and she marries a colorless worker.
Everyone mocks and mistreats Weiguo (Feng Li), yet only his family feels the pain. He takes things in stride and feels no sorrow. Even an attempt on his life by his siblings goes unnoticed. Doted on by parents and eventually looked after by a wife his mother arranges for him, Weiguo winds up with a successful fast-food stall.
Li Qiang's meticulous screenplay gives short shift to the young brother, Weiqiang (Lu Yulai). The smartest of the three, he nevertheless suffers the tribulations of his siblings and decides his only option is to quit the town for the outside world. He returns with a wife, who supports him, her child and a finger missing from one hand. The film never explains any of this. His is a secret life, an enigma never resolved.
Although a bit too long, the movie exploits its leisurely pace to show us in full the details of small-town life, the cruelties of many folks, the judgmental nature of the parents and a society changing before our eyes. In this way, Gu and his writer explore human nature: A woman becomes a martyr to her dreams. A fat bundle of sensual need embraces life and faces up to forces arrayed against him. A man is willing to ignore his gifts and fail. Parents are quiet, interfering, benevolent yet uncomprehending.
All technical aspects of the film come together to create an expressive, engrossing, melancholy family drama which contains much beauty, yet this goes mostly unnoticed by the participants.

Credits:
Director: Gu Changwei;
Screenwriter: Li Qiang;
Producers: Dong Ping, Gu Changwei;
Executive producer: Ma Baoping;
Director of photography: Yang Shu;
Production designers: Huang Xinmin, Cai Weidong;
Music: Dou Peng;
Costume designer: Ziang Honghui;
Editors: Lui Sha, Yan Tao.
Cast: Sister: Zhang Jingchu; Brother: Feng Li; Younger brother: Lu Yulai; Mother: Huang Meiying; Father: Zhao Yiwei; Guo Zi: Liu Lei; Jin Zhi: Wang Lan.