As far as his own future plans are concerned, Gu said, "I always want to try something new. If this debut film bombs, I may have to go back to my old trade but can still have a better understanding of other aspects of filmmaking."
"If I can make it big, I may try more in film directing in the coming years but will never give up my right to be a cinematographer. My passion for the art of filmmaking will never change. Film is the other lifetime lover and soul mate in my life, besides my wife Jiang Wenli," he said.
Story of Peacock
Peacock is set in the average, rather depressed town of Shuiye, inAnyangCounty of Central China'sHenan Provincein the 1970s and 1980s. China is just beginning to rub its eyes after the political bender of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and trying to get to pull itself together to face real life again.
Shot from the perspective of the younger brother, Peacock tells the story of three children in an ordinary family of five who are struggling to get ahead as China shifts from the post-Cultural Revolution period to the early days of reform. The film is a subtle investigation of human conditions in those changing years.
Chinese society is slowly opening up, offering the first glimmers of hope to the people who have survived the previous years of trauma. The artistic two-hour film -- shot in a small city in Henan Province in the local dialect -- moves slowly but forcefully, with long camera shots and short but poignant dialogues. The cinematography of Gu Changwei (also the director) beautifully captures the blues and grays of urban life.
The family is first introduced eating together in the outdoor corridor by their apartment. Peacock unfolds in three segments as the story of each of the three children is separately told. We first meet the elder sister Weihong (Zhang Jingchu), a precocious woman in her early 20s. Then comes the elder brother Weiguo (Feng Li), who is around 24, obese, and slightly retarded. Last is the younger brother Weiqiang (Lu Yulai), an introverted high-school student. Each segment begins with the same scene of the family sitting on small stools eating dinner on the public balcony of their dusty apartment building.
Peacock is really the story of the elder sister Weihong, a young woman who is part daydreamer, part romantic, and ultimately a realist, as most Chinese had to be in those days. This dreamy girl is always after something that she can't reach, and is viewed by others as being somewhat of a freak. She is a trapped in a sad reality that she does not know how to escape. Like her two brothers, she wants more out of life, but she is powerless to do anything. And China in the late 1970s did not offer many options.
Weihong gets fired from her job in a nursery school, and then ends up washing bottles in a dingy factory. But what she lacks in ability, she makes up for in boldness. Early in the movie we see her putting her laundry aside on the roof to lie down and stare up at the sky as Air Force planes roar overhead, spitting out People's Liberation Army paratroopers. Weihong rides her bicycle out to a field as paratroopers continue to float to the ground, managing to get caught in the chute of a handsome PLA soldier. The impressionable woman then tries to enlist in the army as a paratrooper - in an attempt to escape her family and dead-end life -- but she fails the physical examination.
One poignant scene shows her riding down the street with a billowing, homemade parachute tied to the back of her bicycle. As her bicycle races forward, she stretches her two hands into the air, one of the few times we see her smiling and carefree in the movie. The fun ends quickly, however, when her mother sees the spectacle and chases her down the street, trying to grab the wind-filled, swaying parachute. Mother, daughter, bicycle, and parachute come crashing to the ground. The girl tries to realize her dream of becoming a paratrooper in such a whimsical way that she both amuses on-lookers and embarrasses her family.
When that doesn't work out, Weihong finds some solace outside work in a friendship with an old accordion player (Wang Yingjie). In the end, Weihong offers her one advantage -- her beauty -- to an older, homely-looking man in exchange for a better job. In quiet desperation, she precipitously marries an official's driver, Xiaowang (Shi Junhui), and leaves home to start a new life.
Actually, it is she who boldly proposes marriage to the shocked man, who nervously asks if they aren't being a bit hasty. She replies that's there no reason to wait. "I'm not going to get any better, and you're not going to get any worse," she says matter-of-factly. Her marriage lands her a new job, but not one that appears to be much better than her old one.
With all her enthusiasm, this girl cherishes her unsuitable dream against the difficulties of her life. In order to win what she wants, she never yields to fate, until she is finally defeated and turned into an insipid woman.
The film then shifts to the elder brother, whose physical girth and mental disability make him a laughingstock. Weiguo is a fat simpleton who's made fun of and can't hold down a job, but who finally shows he isn't as dumb as he looks when he's matched in an arranged marriage to the plain but smart country girl Jin Zhi (Wang Lan).
The final half-hour focuses on the youngest sibling, the quiet and skinny Weiqiang, who's also the film's occasional narrator. The film examines how the younger brother is affected by both the humiliation surrounding his brother and the sadness arising from his sister's disillusionment. After being kicked out by his father, Weiqiang quits the town in quiet desperation, before returning in very different, more confident guise with a songstress wife (An Jing).
The brothers go through a similar process as the sister, before they too eventually consign themselves to their own sad fates.
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