A visit to an alien world offers hope in this melancholic sci-fi animation that creates beauty out of the mundane.
In the future, space tourism is a reality and the demand for older forms of entertainment has faded. As a result, an abandoned Chinese film studio is now in the hands of caretaker Lao Zha. When Zha is given a VR headset instead of a salary, he enters an alien world.
In his melancholic debut feature, Xu Zao blurs the boundaries between animation and live action, reality and illusion, while reflecting on the nature of old and new entertainment to escape the burden of everyday loneliness. Hand-drawn 2D animation beautifully visualises the deserted film studio, with a Great Sphinx of Giza-replica, and the Forbidden City in snowy winter. The scenes from the VR (entitled Summer Night in a Small Town), on the other hand, were shot in first-generation digital video. Though fuzzy and blurry, these images offer a lot more warmth than caretaker Zha’s real life. In Light Pillar, Zao manages to create beauty out of the mundane.
