Animafest Zagreb Review: Light Pillar is an elegiac and ironic ode to all the lonely people

For some people, the digital and virtual worlds they inhabit feel more real than the real world. Whether it's social media platforms, online forums, virtual reality worlds, or video games, sometimes the layer of anonymity emboldens people to live more openly and honestly than they can in their day-to-day lives. 

In Light Pillar, it certainly feels that way for Lao Zha, who works as a janitor at a derelict film studio. It's winter, and the studio lot's sprawling grounds, which include everything from a hilltop lighthouse to a massive replica of the Sphinx (the employee break room is in its rear), are covered in snow. Lao Zha, along with his coworkers, spend their days shoveling, doing repairs, and trying to keep the place in some sort of shape. Not that it's doing much to help business.

When he goes to his boss's house to ask for his pay, Lao Zha is instead given a visor that serves as a VR headset, allowing him to escape into the hazy warmth of Home Sweet Home: Summer Night in a Small Town. Life here is an endless festival: music, sparkling lights, dancing. In a supremely clever (and perhaps ironic) twist, the scenes that take place in this virtual world are portrayed in live-action. Suddenly, we see a flesh-and-blood actor playing Lao Zha -- or rather, his avatar -- becoming emboldened to better himself, finding ways to pass the time, and taking his first tentative footsteps toward love.

Light Pillar hits such a specific tone, and walks that tonal tightrope beautifully throughout its understated yet beguiling story. Watching this supremely lonely soul shuffling around an all-but-abandoned backlot, searching for flickers of human connection in an isolating world...the elegiac atmosphere is reminiscent of Goodbye, Dragon Inn. You find yourself prematurely mourning this place that presumably had glory days, though they are far, far in the past by now. 

Despite the best efforts of the motley crew (and the out-out-touch boss), there likely isn't a future for this film studio. Attempts to become something of a tourist spot yield some results -- people love a photo op -- but not enough to pay the bills. There's a feeling of trying to keep something alive that might already be dead, the stubborn refusal to realize that the world has moved on and left you behind. It's heartbreaking, and maybe a little too real. For eight years, I worked on a talk show on a lot here in LA, and with each passing year, more and more of the stages stood empty, productions fleeing to other places with better tax breaks and cheaper rates. There are few places sadder than a quiet studio backlot.

Not to say that Light Pillar is a slog, or too heavy. While it is contemplative and even poetic, it's also very funny, and has a couple running gags that never failed to make me laugh. One of Lao Zha's coworkers is a Roomba, who just goes about his work like all of his human compatriots. The boss talks into a gaudy gold microphone even though he's only managing a handful of people, or even when he's talking to someone one-on-one. These little quirky moments, along with world-building details that show we're somewhere in the future, do a lot to let this film breathe and stretch out a bit.

The title comes from a tourist space program that has launched in the film, allowing everyday people to venture out into the stars. The woman Lao Zha falls for in his virtual world dreams of going on one of these ships, and entreats her new beau to join her. But considering his financial situation, that feels like a pipe dream. For Lao Zha, venturing into the world of Home Sweet Home is as bold a journey as getting on a rocket ship and landing on the moon: putting himself out there, connecting authentically with another person, using his voice.

Light Pillar is so much about the ways we move through a world that is not built to care for us, and the ways we nurse our loneliness and isolation through means that possibly make us even more lonely and isolated. It's like the bandage Lao Zha is handed after a pretty serious workplace accident: not even close to being able to treat the pain. Yet we take what we can get, find solace in a stranger in a virtual world, maybe because it actually feels more real, or maybe because we wish it felt more real. Free will is a funny thing, and the ways humans wield it, funnier yet. But we're all slaves to capitalism, so it's hard to begrudge anyone finding a soft place to land, however briefly, wherever they can.