I'll take a stab at it. I think the spacecraft was pretty much death. Family was in debt, taking place during a financial crisis, pretty much the only synopsis for the film. During the picnic, the father starts to choke on some food and realizes he doesn't want to die. When leaving the hotel wife left $$ on counter, since she has no use for it anymore. Husband took it because he made up his mind on what he was planning. When the spacecraft came to end them, father took off, basically getting rid of his wife and son. Easier to support only himself. He ran to the water to basically cleanse himself of the horror he basically just committed by sacrificing his family.
there are so few other people who basically understood this film. thank you, really and truly, for being another person who is capable of processing information.
I Mean, What I Interpreted At The End Was That The Man Was Willing To Sacrifice His Family As A Means To Survive And The Spacecraft Didn’t Like That So They Abducted Him And Him Only So He’s Trapped In The Total Darkness You See At The End. No Family And No Money With Quite Possibly No Food And Water. Just Him And His Thoughts, The Thoughts Constantly Beating Him Up For His Decision To Sacrifice His Family. That’s My Interpretation Of It But I Think I’ve Watched Too Much Of The Twilight Zone😂. Let Me Know What You Think
I think the dad died choking on fish bones and that starting from the moment we see him in the water with his son, that's what he experiences with the beginning of brain death. I think the water/son scene is representative of any potential euphoric effects of oxygen deprivation. Then he senses he's in an ambulance with bright lights and electrical shocks to revive him. He doesn't actually want to go, and his son doesn't want him to go, but both parents know this sacrifice will be better for the son in the end (presumably through a life insurance settlement?). When the dad remembers this, he lets go (letting go of the jacket), calms down and finds relief in the darkness.
As far as I can tell they left the planet. Dude never truly planned on going though hence the reason he felt the need to keep the money. When it came time he chickened out. Nothing actually happened to him save the fact he's now stuck here and passed up his opportunity. That's my take away anyhow.
This was utterly fascinating. The opening scene you got the feeling something was off but not really sure what. The scene on the beach was foreboding. The scene in the hotel gave me dread. The walk was eerie and the end was no no no. It is not a self explanatory film but rather I believe a look at sacrifice. We are transported back to Singapore during the late 1999's Asian financial crisis. The family was in a dire situation and needed a way out. Putting them on Singapore's vacation island was a nice juxtaposition to their desperation. The rest of the film in my opinion is an analogy on the sacrifices we make in crisis in this case a financial one. This was well crafted. The lighting worked and the warning was very appropriate. The locations were excellent. It was made the rounds of festivals and has its own Facebook page and I am glad to see it on Alter. Great job to all involved. Peace.
Can you explain what happened to his family? it looks like he was burnt from Radiation ☢️? 99% of us watching are confused.Yet Not what Was Happening in the Short film 📽️esp the end 🔚
Im as confused as anyone so maybe I'll take a stab at it. I think maybe 5 or 6 years before this, aliens switched bodies with the boys parents. Now is time to switch back - what we see when he freak out, the boys original father has returned to his body, frightened running off into the woods. When he reaches water, he knows he is home. "This world isn't for us" "Some thing we don't have a choice in" It also looks like his eyes were burned at the end there. Thats all I got so far.
You know you have an awesome short when over half the people in the comment section have absolutely no idea just what happened, but claim they loved it anyways! I am one of those! LOL!!! I think I get the concept, but wish some of it had been a little bit more spelled out for us. Always love my Alter shorts!!!
The dude just left his family to get taken😂🤣 He was all brave waiting for the spacecraft, and then when it arrived, he freaked out😂 You see the grass isn't always greener on the other side😮I want to know what he saw in that light!?🤔
Ok. After having time to think about it - I think he either screwed up the "travel" process or saved himself from the process. Perhaps the aliens don't take the primitive body, only the consciousness. During the climax of the alien ship appearing, both him AND HIS WIFE, fall to the ground. Because he had his hands up, the light burned his skin leaving finger-sized slivers of unburned skin luckily where his eyes were - he goes to the water to cool the burns and you can see them clearly in the reflected light. Maybe he saved himself by holding up his hands, maybe he screwed something up. I'm sure there is a lot of financial metaphors, transitions to the unknown, keeping the family feeling secure during insecure times - probably due to the mentioned Asian financial crisis - he didn't leave the money his wife left on the table because that wouldn't be the necessary "just-in-case" mindset of being cautious - but it was his cautiousness that either saved him from death or screwed up his salvation - separating himself from his wife and kids. Perhaps he wasn't as committed as was required - maybe the process was successful, and the aliens only took the advanced part of the consciousness. But it also seems like an animalistic transformation he makes at the end - like his humanity has indeed separated from his body leaving his animal mind behind. Everyone is that animal deep down. Kinda fun picking these apart.
I think the father sacrificed his family to the beings in the ship, same reason he took the money in the hotel room, cause he knew then he would abandon them and keep living. Also, the shot of him holding his son's body in the water while his son looks lifeless and he's holding him in a way that looks like he's offering him up to something, as a gift. I'm pretty sure that shot is the centerpiece of the entire film
It's not like after two hours of him panting I started wondering what had happened to his family. There was a bit too much left hanging in the air in this one.
wife and son got abducted (hope...fully?). then we get husband's severe buyer's remorse, or possibly he never intended to go with them and at the end is guilty about lying and torn up about being alone
Wow. WOW. So I accidentally saw a comment that mentioned The spacecraft is death. And I was expecting that it would be like a run of the mill dystopian scifi twist. They board the ship and everyone’s running out of food or something. Just a family trying to survive, hopeful for the future. Then there’s uncertainty because the parents haven’t been here before. There’s all this tension. And then the lights start flashing and the father’s immediate reaction is “this is WRONG” and he just ABANDONS his family. The camera “embossing (?)” was well done - just sucked all hope and life out of that part of the film. Wow.
@@JaydragonMi read the synopsis under the title of the film; the setting was during the 1999 financial crises in Asian countries. People in the comments are speculating that this father was greatly impacted by financial ruin, and planned for his wife and child to “go away” so he would be rid of the extra financial burden of his family. Then when it was time to go meet their fate, his guilt drove him temporarily mad. I am thinking he was planning to go away with them ( murder-suicide) but changed his mind, as he took the money as they left the hotel. I really am not sure if this is certain, but it does make the film a bit more clear.
loved the vibe, *but* i did not really understand the plot. even watched it twice. am i dumb or is this confusing. for real, someone please explain this one to me. i want to fully vibe with it, ya know. 💖
You're not dumb, it's just confusing imo. Lots of ppl here feel the same I think. This was a total wtf for me. Smh. So many Alter videos confuse the heck outta me but I still like the channel, as I've come across some gems here and there (and I haven't even come close to watching all its videos, but hopefully soon I will). If I figure something out I'll let ya know and I'd be happy to hear anything you can make sense of lol. Either way I guess it was ok entertainment ??
@@ChaCha.44 for sure. like i love the channel, too, but i cannot grasp this one. never consider alter "not worth it" though. they have such fantastic content overall and always show me how to expand my horror pallet. 💖
@@alexismariaotero it's a metaphor for hopelessness at the height of the asian financial crisis hitting singapore hard in the late nineties. feeling like there's no future and they don't belong in this world, the family found a way to go somewhere else via being deliberately abducted by aliens, but in the end, the father is too afraid to go through with it and runs away. his desire to bring money that would obviously be useless now seems to me like he kind of planned this - that he didn't want to go through with it himself but at least his family would be somewhere better and he'd have a life he could afford. i'd say the main point here is a metaphor for the family's suicide, that they'd rather just die before things have a chance to get even worse and the last of their funds vanishes and there's potentially no hope for a future. hence: the dad choking but wanting to be saved, when viewing this as a metaphor for suicide, is foreshadowing that he isn't actually on the same page as his wife and son, or maybe that moment made him realize that he was not cut out for suicide. so it exists simultaneously as two stories: a less literal story in which a family who feels doomed by the economic and political conditions of the time and location just decide to die on their own terms together but the dad ends up being too afraid to go through with it, and a more literal story where the alien stuff is taken at face value so we have the family deciding that literally anything (including the total unknown) is better than letting things continue as they are but in the end the dad is too afraid of the unknown and sticks with the devil he knows instead of the one he doesn't. the big question of the short is "did he plan to not go with them all along, or did he lose his nerve on the last day?" and that one is most likely meant to be left up to the viewer to decide, and also to decide how they'd feel about either possibility.
@@alexismariaotero I very much agree with everything you just said there. I think so many of these writers, producers, directors, etc. just have so many zillions of ways and methods to everything, things that haven't really been done much before, that as a result we as the audience are even more confused, which results in frustration (for me anyways!), plus more than likely I'll end up skipping any more future or past works by the same filmmakers...I'm ok with giving second chances I suppose but some movie makers I just know right away that I don't like their style, their content, etc., so I just choose not to keep watching more content by them (which is obviously totally ok, since I respect everyone's different forms of expression and others' reactions to it, unless it seriously is harmful to other ppl). Others I'll maybe keep watching and they'll "grow on me", but it may take some time depending on the films' make-up, etc. and how I initially react to it. I absolutely despise the wannabe, overly-artsy-fartsy films that just end like outta nowhere, literally, and I'm left just tossing my half-eaten slice of pizza out the window outta irritation, like OMG WTF ARE U KIDDING ME?! I even admit I've rewound it just to make sure it IS definitely THE END of the film. 🤦🏻♀️ Lord help us!
Malaysia or Singapore?…ending every sentence with “la” and eating longan. Then they brought up the Merlion and I had my answer. Great seeing a film from Singapore, so we’ll done too.
Yes, i'm from Singapore 🇸🇬 and they were acting in Sentosa, Singapore. Those actresses from Singapore( Chinese Singaporeans). Merlion from Singapore ❤.. Love watching from the Alter Channel 😍 ❤️
I have no idea this film is about. Also, the pacing is too dragged out, so I skipped bits and pieces of this a lot. If it tries to convey a message, it fails to reach me 🤷
was it though? i was a little surprised that he left, but in retrospect it was definitely foreshadowed. if you want someone to break the story down and explain it, read more comments, several people have explanations/analyses, including me in one thread
Ummmm...yeah...okayyyyy. 🤷🏻♀️ No clue what I just watched for 22 wasted mins of my evening. Anyone have any explanations for this film? It'd be greatly appreciated, thanks 😂
i explain it pretty thoroughly in another comment thread you're also part of. ctrl+F alexismariaotero who started a similar thread, i explain it in there. hopefully after that you won't feel like you wasted your time. i definitely don't feel like i wasted mine
What a waste of 22 minutes and 26 seconds. This was without a doubt the worst thing I've seen on ALTER. A total flop: no plot worth speaking of, and absolutely no payoff of any kind at the end. if you get turned on by the sound of whimpering, hyperventilating middle aged men though, go for it.
The broken English is so bad, it took me a while to figure it out. Thought they were speaking Hokkien or Tagalog at first 😅. Don’t take offense since my family is also Asian.
ctrl+F alexismariaotero who started a similar thread, i explain the story there in a reply to those comments if you're a huge fan of alter then how are you this bad at processing information presented to you in short films
thank you so much for being one of the few other people in this comment section who understood what was happening in the film. most of the other folks here are rapidly crushing my faith in our species
@@MalkuthSephira Well, please don't lose hope! 🥰 Blame the last FIFTY YEARS of Hollywood DROSS and also TikTok which have combined to make most people thick as planks with an attention span of 5 seconds...
