Lagoon

QIU Runfeng’s animated short Lagoon captures the collective emotions during the pandemic lockdowns through a fable-like visual language. The lagoon—a semi-isolated zone between land and sea—becomes a symbol for the confusion and helplessness of that time. What stands out most is the film’s use of colour: the burning orange-red palette evokes Norwegian painter Edvard Munch’s The Scream, intensifying a sense of oppression; while the deep, layered blues recall the melancholic weight found in Chinese Canadian painter Matthew Wong’s blue-toned works. With thorn-like branches spreading across the screen and ghost towns emptied of life, Qiu drifts between reality and the surreal, using images to tap into a collective subconscious shaped by isolation. The result is an unsettling, unspoken pain that lingers. It is a pain shared by all: even if you resist revisiting it, life finds its own way to make you remember.

– SHEN Wei