[Marxism] Peacock

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Set in 1976 in some unidentified midsize city, "Peacock" tells the story of
three young adult members of the Gao family trying to make their way in
post-Cultural Revolution China. This is very much a fleeting moment in time
when Chinese society is still marked by the austerity of the Maoist era and
when foundational beliefs in communism have all but vanished--soon to be
replaced by consumerism.

Structured as a kind of trilogy that puts each child successively into the
foreground, it begins with the tale of Weihong (Zhang Jingchu), the
daughter and youngest child. Returning home one day on her bicycle, she
experiences an almost mystical encounter with a group of male and female
paratroopers parachuting into a nearby field. When the parachute strings of
the squad leader, a handsome man with a Beijing accent (as the subtitle
indicates), gets tangled in her handle-bars, she resolves at that moment to
become a paratrooper herself. That decision has more to do with the romance
of the uniform, an attraction to the squad leader and the esthetics of the
blue silk parachute than it does with the legend of the Red Army.
Furthermore, the Beijing accent has a certain cachet for Weihong, which for
denizens of her city must have the same class connotations that an Oxbridge
accent has for somebody living in the East End of London.

After the Red Army rejects her application, she carries a torch both for
the handsome squad leader and the numinous parachute. At home she sews
together her own parachute, attaches it to the back of her bike like a kite
and rides through the streets until unceremoniously crashing into another
bike. While she lies semiconscious on the street, an admirer, whom she has
rejected in the past, takes the parachute hostage. He will only release it
after she has had sex with him in a nearby forest. In this film, love--like
all other ideals--comes in short supply.

With hopes for a career in the military dashed, she settles for more
realistic goals that mainly involve leaving her oppressive family household
and her job washing bottles. She throws herself at a local party
bureaucrat's homely chauffeur and makes him promise to find her another job
before they get married.

Her older brother is the overweight Weiguo (Li Feng), whom a childhood
illness has left slightly retarded. He is simultaneously tormented by
neighborhood bullies and doted upon by their overprotective mother. Weihong
and middle brother Weiqiang (Lu Yulai) occupy a middle-ground, alternating
between fraternal feelings and impatience with his slowness.

In an odd way, all of the children are preoccupied with the same issues
that faced the characters in "Pride and Prejudice," finding a marriage
partner: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in
possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

Unfortunately for Weiguo, he has neither fortune, nor beauty, nor
intelligence. But this does not prevent him for aspiring high. In his
modest if not impoverished world this means wooing a factory girl he has
fallen in love with after spotting her on the street. His doting but
realistic mother approaches her on the street with an offer of cash if she
comes to dinner. She doesn't have to accept Weiguo's love, since it is
obvious that he is no match for her, but she simply has to go through the
motions of seriously considering him. The outcome, although ignominious,
does not have a lasting impact on Weiguo who faces life with a sunny if
somewhat uncomprehending grin.

The last episode is devoted to Weiqiang, who is the most sensitive and
intelligent of the three children. He provides the film's narration and
probably encapsulates the POV of the film's first time director Changwei Gu
and screenwriter Qiang Li, who has written the script for a film now in
production titled "The Aunt's Postmodern Life."

Changwei Gu has a long and distinguished career as a cinematographer and
has worked both in China and in the West. In an interview with Firecracker,
an online publication, he put forward the motivation for making "Peacock":

"I didn't set out to make a political film. This era is just very familiar
to me. It is my generation. The late 70's and early 80's mark the end of
the Cultural Revolution and China's transition from a planned economy to a
market economy. In such an era, the value of the individual is often
overlooked. I wanted to make a film about individual lower class people in
China. This family is like 1.2 billion others. They are not heroes, or
celebrities. People are not normally interested in these lives, but I
believe they have the capacity to be beautiful too."

Full:
<http://www.firecracker-media.com/issue04/interview02.shtml>http://www.firecracker-media.com/issue04/interview02.shtml

He has succeeded beyond all expectations. One of the great things about
contemporary Chinese film is its ability to dramatize the lives of such
ordinary people. In the face of a society that worships material success
and ever increasingly the cultural values of the West, including those
displayed in Hollywood film, it is gratifying to see this spark of humanity
still glowing.

"Peacock" was the opening feature in this year's Asian Film Festival in New
York City. I am grateful to Grady Hendrix of Subway Cinema, one of the main
organizers of the festival, for making screeners of festival films
available to me. I plan to review them over the next week or so while the
festival is in progress. Schedule information is at:
<http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/nyaff06films.htm>http://www.subwaycinema.com/frames/nyaff06films.htm.
I strongly urge New Yorkers to check out these films, since they are far
more interesting than anything you can find at the local Cineplex.


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