Peacock begins with an act: two workers putting out a fire from a golf cart — the rich revel in the rescue, full of praise and easily impressed at the spectacle, unknowing, unlike the audience’s point of view, that it is a performance. Thus forms the man at the core of Bernhard Wenger’s Peacock, a film that borders between performance and modernity, a clean-cut satirical absurdist comedy which treads along similar lines as Ruben Östlund (Triangle of Sadness).
Starring A Quiet on the Western Front’s Albrecht Schuch, absurdity unfolds seamlessly through the pitiful trajectory of a grown man losing his mind. A metaphor hidden in plain sight as our central protagonist forms the crux of a pretentious person, first in role-playing for his job as a “companion”, he is unable to distinguish his character persona from real life; this is our “Peacock” — a pitifully perfect caricature for a modern day tortured man.
Peacock characterises society as a performative organ. Even in its final form, upon the mental deterioration and denouement of our central protagonist in which he performs a ludicrous act of humiliation, garners the “rich” response: “It’s art!”. Wenger’s depiction is fascinating and laughable as it is envy-worthy, as a mustached man subjected to a bloody nose becomes a mirror in some ways to iconical slapstick comedy, yet meticulous design choices draw upon absurdist and elitist sophistication comparable to a more rigidly polished Yorgos Lanthimos film. Audiences can find amusement in the personification of the troubles faced by the everyday common man, transformed into a ticking time bomb on the big screen for our entertainment. An all-too-familiar trajectory, the subject, although not novel, receives gracious treatment from its film-maker who knows better than to shove it in your face, but instead understands drama in itself, the beauty of allowing the canon to unravel loosely; you’ll be tempted to call it cinematic brilliance.
A laughable achievement, Peacock is an accomplishment of profiling pretentiousness and the quips of our society — no matter how blindly approached, it is sure to produce hearty reactions that will leave any audience aghast or kicking their feet in laughter. All there is to say, give us more men with mustaches in 2025.
Image provided by GFF for press use.
