Never underestimate the critical desire to cite Éric Rohmer––spend enough days at a film festival and you’ll start noticing illusions to the director’s work in your breakfast cereal. Still, I’m struggling to think of a recent film that’s done so much with Rohmer’s style as The Plant from the Canaries, a debut of rare clarity, wit, and beauty. It might be the best thing I saw in Locarno this year.
Canaries is directed by Ruan Lan-Xi, a filmmaker from China who has lived in Berlin for almost a decade. Though the protagonist here is Korean, Ruan’s film speaks with remarkable specificity about the experience of being an expat in Berlin for that period of time. It’s not insignificant that the film takes place in the colder months of the year, long after the parks have gone quiet and lakes have frozen over––a season when many slip into hibernation, take stock, and start enjoying the city’s quieter charms.
Canaries is told from the perspective of May (Jung Hyeonsu), beginning with a break-up and lingering in the weeks that follow. Playing out over 66 minutes, Ruan’s film examines the process of moving on: we get the search for a new flat, a trip to the cinema (where she rightly asks to correct the aspect ratio), a brief hook-up, and the sort of kind gesture from a neighbor that really can turn your mood around. The best sequence involves an evening on the couch eating clementines with a supportive friend (Daria Wichmann)––a scene Ruan begins with the two of them dancing together, just as she will show May dancing with her reflection in the mirror later on. We also see her attend a ballroom class and watch from the sideline, though notably not with the presence of someone waiting for a partner to materialize. The film is an autumnal melancholy, no doubt, but it’s more interested in how a city can be a source of solidarity in chillier times, even our most solitary moments.
That decidedly non-touristic gaze extends to Canaries‘ locations, which feature none of the city’s recognizable signifiers, bar for the snaking train lines of a central station and the façade of a popular noodle joint. I should mention that the film was shot in the neighborhood I’ve lived in for much of the last twelve years, yet while Ruan features some locations I’ve always thought would look great in a movie, there are many I would never have considered. It’s wonderful when films show you something you’ve never seen before; it’s also wonderful when they show you something you know as if seeing it for the first time. Ruan extends that personal lens to May’s narration, which features childhood memories and dreams which I can only assume are the director’s own.
Though the mood can get introspective, the score (which includes some lovely stuff by Moondog) keeps things afloat, as do the restrained but never austere images––the DP is Jonathan Steil, who worked on Angela Schanelec’s Music. The gorgeous exteriors mostly come in medium shot and feature endearingly awkward small talk and just the occasional, albeit distinctive camera movement. Watching along, the mind inevitably wanders to Hong Sangsoo (that other great Rohmer fan), but even when Ruan quotes the Korean’s signature zoom, it comes with a distinct flourish. The moment arrives early on as May, walking in a local park, runs into an old flame who seems (much to her consternation) keen to rekindle. Ruan dutifully has the camera approach her as he talks, replacing his voice with the sound of her heartbeat and a lightly lilting oboe. By the time we pull back, the ghoster’s gone––if only reality were so simple.
The Plant from the Canaries premiered at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival.