Honoured at the 29the Chéris, the Parisian film festival focused on LGBTQI&+++ themes, Peafowl is his director's first feature film. Byun Sung-bin. Myung, a transgender dancer based in Seoul, must return to the city where she grew up to participate in her recently deceased father's funeral. She will have to face the eyes of those who knew her and assert her personality in the face of their prejudices.
« Show, gift tell » As the other said
Behind a classical scriptual structure assumed, returning to the themes of filiation and recognition of its peers, Peafowl suffers from his terribly demonstrative writing. The film falls into the trap of explanatory dialogue, never setting up subtexts between the characters, as in the interests of absolute clarity. Their interactions go beyond the disarming frankness to address directly to the spectators, which serves them totally, making them lose all depth.
After the first half hour, it appears that history and characters no longer seem to have a secret for us. Except for a sub-intrigue that comes out of nowhere and shakes the situation. But again, it offers only one of the most agreed outcomes. The progress of the narrative therefore becomes particularly soft and one cannot help but wonder why continue to look at a work that has already destroyed all its maps.
A caged frame
Some could answer for form. Here, the director chose to put in place a composition of fixed cameras, with cold, geometric and implacable frames, which impose themselves on the situation more than it does. The subjects are in turn tiny insects gesticulating in immense or well-decided landscapes of the center of the image. A style that has often been accompanied by a ratio of 4:3, like Limbo Ben Sharrock. A film that also addresses in its own way the subject of characters looking for their place in a hostile environment.
Only here, as in his script, Peafowl highlights an aesthetic that blows very quickly, as it delivers very quickly what it offers. All these variations of the plans that make up the vast majority of the feature film are present from the first minutes. And this staging never succeeds in reinventing itself or developing through the film. It is such a radical choice, so perceptible and therefore, so visible, that it ends up fatigued by its redundancy within almost two hours that it lasts Peafowl.
It's a shame, because the work of the camera becomes really interesting only in too few scenes (usually dance) that spread the film. When it is finally allowed to free himself from this rigor too quickly tried, the result may be simpler, less learned appearance, but it is devilishly more effective. Like when Myung starts dancing alone. Or, on the contrary, accompanied by her peers, she finally finds her place by learning a traditional dance. The camera then dislodged itself from its base and offered in its movement real incarnated moments of cinema. No more insipid exchanges and self-destructive staging to finally fully connect with Myung's feelings.
A (too) long quiet river
Perhaps this is where the main flaw lies. Peafowl. Sa durée qui dilue et éparpille dans des péripéties inintéressantes ses maigres qualités, au lieu de les concentrer dans un récit fort et énergique. Dans un film nourri par la puissance dont le cinéma peut faire preuve. Tout n’est pas à jeter donc, mais peut-être faudrait-il lorgner vers God’s Daughter Dance, son précédent court-métrage consacré à la question des personnes transgenres dans la société sud-coréenne. De plus, il mettait déjà en scène Hae-Jun dans le rôle principal, qui on peut le dire, reste la principale force de Peafowl.
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