“Our Time Machine” (2019, directed by S. Leo Chiang
and Yang Sun on PBS POV Monday, September 28, 2020, only slightly condensed
from 86 minutes), is indeed a layered story about creativity. Here is the best
PBS link. It's in Mandarin Chinese with titles.
In Beijing, artist and puppeteer Ma Liang (a.k.a.
Maleonn) learns that his father is suffering from Alzheimer’s. He decides to
write a puppet “screenplay” and then produce it reviewing his dad’s life
through the intricate puppet show, with lots of detailed costumes and
mechanical drives and wheels underneath. He believes this will help his dad recovered
his memory. The play will be called “Papa’s Time Machine”.
In his family, there is a controversy over whether he
should continue producing “beauty” for the world, or just be a good son during
the last year of dad’s life.
But then a son of his is born, and that changes the
dynamics.
The film was followed by “Negative Space”, by Max Porter
(short, 12 minutes, 2017), animated. A child watches his businessman father pack
his grippe for travel and learns proper habits that way, until his dad passes
away and is remembered in a funeral.
Picture: Beijing railway station, Wikipedia embed, click for attribution
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