'Light Pillar' (2026) Film Review: Quiet Male Desperation

Greece, Egypt, and the Forbidden City are all part of a grand post-cinematic scene in Xu Zao's meticulously crafted 'Light Pillar' (Han ye deng zhu, pr: Fengduan Pictures). This addictively slow-paced, solid debut feature film is at its best when it serves as a visual elegy for lost illusions. Filming here is a big parable (both in the beginning and the ending of the film) of grander-than-life aspirations that should come true, yet they don't. 

The very silent (in the animation part of the film) main character, Lao Zha, is a janitor at a large Chinese studio, on the verge of bankruptcy. Think of it as a Cinecitta of China, whose miniature structures of the world's monuments (sometimes helped by the 'My Darling Clementine' instrumental song version) give a version of a former glory pastiche, with nothing new to be discovered. The studio works now as a "cultural center" entertainment, in which impressive actions are reenacted with the help of a big fan and a reflector -both visible to the paying customers.

Lao is the only bachelor in the studio and has never had a relationship. Living alone on a sofa with his aging cat (a former award-winning cat actor), he spends his time watching TV commercials. In one of them, the "Light Pillar" spacetime programme promises a unique space travel experience -if only you had the money. But there's always a substitute. Usually very shy and always taking a step back when meeting his colleagues, Zha decides to take a big step and ask the venue administrator for his overdue money. Instead of money, he receives a VR headset as partial compensation. In the ensuing world experiences, Zha will meet a girl, in a Kaurismaki-inspired romance, and the two outcasts will bond. 

The ploy of using animation at the ground level for the story, and putting grainy live-action footage as the VR dreamy equivalent (and not the other way round) cements the film in the level of animated realism from the start -no matter what amateurish extravagant sequences (of the circus fair) are implanted via the goggles. A world of quiet desperation (even amid the snow's overwhelming white) unveils here. Yet the film's pacing will suffer at exactly this point, turning a very mobile activity (dancing) into a repetitive routine to serve the story.

When it returns from its abandoned world, the film suddenly comes to life again. It masterfully executes its familiar yet advanced technological future amid the dreads of late capitalism: low wages, paid in uneven installments, and showy gifts that are second-hand, made from used materials.

Even though the color palette is necessarily muted, the film knows how to distinguish its sequences, and the scene in the administrator's place, secured by a big gate, with its yellowish tones, has all the characteristics of a once glamorous Chinese original home now becoming the set of a self-help book reading about corporate success.

Women do not fare well in Xu Zao's film. They are either the inevitable, insensitive bosses' lackeys, the scammers, or the simply absent. This is a man's story, of course (and men make movies, including a ready-to-die-but-not-yet male filmmaker), yet one misses the nuances a more careful treatment of a main female character would have. 

And the moment you think there's no more story to it, the film is narratively enhanced in the third act -and putting the whole picture of filmmaking and the image as something to be destroyed (a brilliant idea) into focus. Wheelchairs, assistant directors who handle all communication, and the extermination of the site of illusions make this suddenly (and nicely) complement the original illusions story of its main character. Less about danger (even though the 'Light Pillar' plays a lot with that notion), but more about abandonment, 'Light Pillar' is effectively quiet, but dares to soar at points. Chen Xiaoshu’s music (mostly tiptoeing around the main action) gets its loud rock revenge in the overall dreamy (and visually very loud) animation of Zha into the big space.

'Light Pillar' has very relatable characters (also visually), and its storyline neatly captures an age of technological abandonment. Without universally reaching all the narrative peaks it seeks, it still lingers in mind long after it's finished -a thoughtful animation feature on how personal wishes are registered as irrelevant in a world that never learns.

'Light Pillar' screens in competition at the 2026 Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (5-10 May 2026). It features in the competition of the 2026 Animafest Zagreb festival (8-13 June 2026).

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