Movie Substrate · Film
Bao (2018)
★ 7.6 · 1,301 ratings on TMDB
An aging Chinese mother suffering from empty nest syndrome gets another chance at motherhood when one of her dumplings springs to life as a lively, giggly dumpling boy.
DirectorDomee Shi
The emergence reading
In Bao, consciousness is carried by toys and objects — a plane of “living-bun metaphor”. The story fights on E8/E9 of the E0–E14 reality ladder, compressing family, culture, parenting, identity, independence.
↷ toys and objectsUSfamilycultureparentingidentityindependence
Same rung, same subject
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
Same subject, different rung
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
Also hides consciousness here
Other films that move a human interior onto the same kind of thing.
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)consciousness in objects · mythic feudal Japan
The Lego Batman Movie (2017)consciousness in objects · lego metropolis
Pinocchio (1940)consciousness in objects · living-toy world
The Nutcracker and the Four Realms (2018)consciousness in objects · animated toy realm
The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)consciousness in objects · lego city
Pinocchio (2019)consciousness in objects · living puppet worldSame subject, different mask
The same preoccupations carried by a different kind of thing — grief told through the dead, an animal, a machine.
Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation (2018)consciousness in monsters · culture, family
George of the Jungle 2 (2003)consciousness in animals · culture, family
Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (2021)consciousness in animals · culture, family
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)consciousness in aliens · family, identity
Shazam! (2019)consciousness in abstractions · family, identity
Wreck-It Ralph (2012)consciousness in machines · culture, identity
