Created and produced during while studying at NYU by New York University – Tisch School Of the Arts, “ufo:pm” is written and directed by Xiao Han and comes after few other short films that deal with human feelings and intimate emotions.
Lin Mingming, an 8-year-old girl, is playing with her favourite toy, a flying saucer complete with alien sounds and flashing lights, in a hot and steamy summer day. Her mum is affected by the sticky weather and her temper is very short. When the dad comes back at lunch time, he finds her asleep on the sofa and is not very happy to be greeted by a leftover lunch. Soon the discontent boils over, turning into an unpleasant brawl between the adults, venting their anger and involving the girl as an excuse. An after-lunch nap seems to be the only way to end the bickering, but Lin Minming can't sleep, and her fantasy runs free.
The afternoon nap – a practice notoriously disliked by kids – takes a whole new meaning in Xiao Han's “ufo:pm”. For the mum, it seems to be the metaphor of the way she bottles up her dissatisfaction, her lethargic status reveals her inability to face a problematic relationship and sleeping is an attractive, if yet useless, oasis of calmness. It's interesting how the initial quarrel about the nap becomes a mirror representation of how the mother transfers her feelings onto the daughter. It's her that wants to sleep but she tries to convince the girl she is sleepy and need a nap, overruling and ignoring her daughter real desires. In fact, the whole family is a vivid portrait of adults' way to disguise frustrations behind more frustrations and throwing them to each other in an endless loop.
In the Lin family, love has gone missing somewhere along the way and communication channels are broken. Mingming is her parents' vehicle to attack each other and the vessel of their unhappiness. It's a great deal to bear for an 8-year-old, but the film, with a touch of magic realism, delivers a dash of hope. Fantasy is keeping Mingming afloat and her curiosity toward what is outside the walls of her unhappy family will be her lifeline.
Shot wisely is academy ratio, “ufo:pm” creates the fly-on-the-wall effect of peeking into a private bubble, a claustrophobic microcosm of sorrow. The realistic cinematography and sound design contrast abruptly with the final shots, where the light became protagonist and the melancholic and dramatic soundtrack “Where Is The Ufo?” By Maomao gets its climax. Mingjie Li (Mom), Haosong Yang (Dad), Naomi Huang (Lin Mingming) are aptly cast and deliver the characters with charm. All in all, “ufo:pm” is a sharp observation of tainted family dynamics and a graceful empathic touch of faith in the next generation.
