The canary, a songbird of the finch family, occupies an eminent place in avian symbolism, not least for its melodious birdsong, which in turn underscores a certain fragility and innocence to be cut short by the creature’s death — by noxious gases — in the proverbial coal mine. Its spot amid literary allusion is therefore one of precarity: an ornamental design borne out of whim and equally vulnerable to its dictates. Much like the bird, 30-something Min-ji (Jung Hyeon-su) exists in a state of uneasy equilibrium. An expat from Korea living in Berlin, the protagonist of Ruan Lan-Xi’s The Plant from the Canaries meanders through life abroad with dainty and precarious steps. Though conversant in German, she prefers the English modality, lingua franca for the rarefied cosmopolitan. “May” is her preferred name, not the clumsy phonetics of hanguk. Sporting a pixie cut, she wanders in and out of parks, apartments, and the cinema, mildly affable and always slightly embarrassed.
This embarrassment comes, we learn, with a floundering sense of openness. We first meet her as she queues at a popular noodle establishment, having bumped into an acquaintance and her partner while waiting for her own boyfriend to show up. When he does, it’s not good news: he’s decided to move out of their apartment, effectively bringing their relationship to a close. The therapeutic fallout from this is comically relegated to one brief shot of May at her shrink’s place — “I’ll see you next time?” — while most of the work she does, in picking up the pieces, is done in and around the city’s natural and urban landscapes. Small talk litters the air, sometimes precipitating one-night stands offscreen, other times fizzling into pauses and awkward silences. While the constraints of newfound singlehood weigh down on her, there’s also a silver lining to be found in the autumnal light of Europe: a shot at personal re-invention.
Running at a slim 66 minutes, Ruan’s debut will almost certainly invite comparisons with the conversational naturalism of Éric Rohmer and Hong Sang-soo, the latter an even more recognizable shorthand for contemporary artistic melancholy. Barring its foreign setting, little of The Plant from the Canaries hasn’t been circumscribed under a pastiche of Hong’s auteurist signature, even an amusing zoom shot in which May, having run into an ex who ghosted her, fantasizes possibly of escaping this encounter and achieves it through the camera. Her friendship with a slightly older woman (Daria Wichmann), likely the only other constant in her life, offers a serene counterpoint to the alienating mannerisms demanded of her and likely any other foreigner. Working as a theater freelancer and therefore accustomed to the varieties of societal performance, May is all too self-conscious; that is, until time goes by and the city’s symphony (a light, instrumental score by Moondog) loosens things up. The titular plant, whether a rare offering by the birds or an equally precious archipelago species, reflects her state of mind: dislocated yet resilient, youth and beauty must go on.
Published as part of Locarno Film Festival 2025 — Dispatch 4.
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