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Meeting, The

Entry updated 26 September 2022. Tagged: Film.

Ukrainian animated film (1984; original title Vstrecha). Kievnauchfilm. Directed by Mikhail Titov. Written by V Zayats. 10 minutes. Colour.

Two fishermen joke that a moving light in the sky must be Aliens: they are correct, for it is a spacecraft monitoring the Earth. Realizing they have been noticed, the aliens decide to investigate. Armed with the poisonous substances necessary for conversation – cigarettes and alcohol – one visits a nearby ramshackle hut, empty save for newspapers and an old doll. Being only broadly humanoid, he Shapeshifts into a man he sees in a newspaper photograph. A fisherman arrives; the two smoke and drink – the cigarette changes the alien's colour and he emits an electric discharge that blows a lightbulb; the alcohol affects his shape and greatly increases his weight (see Drugs), though the other does not seem to notice. The conversation turns to UFOs – the fisherman suggests they are likely real, but the alien points out the distances involved and dismisses the idea of Faster Than Light travel. The fisherman eventually agrees with him, so the alien departs to report on the success of his mission.

Shortly after, the fisherman leaves the hut and runs into the nearby lake, where rests another Spaceship; turning into an amphibious alien he boards and flies off, reporting to his superiors that humans do not believe in UFOs. Meanwhile, as the original fishermen light-heartedly blame the lack of fish on aliens and try elsewhere, we see the doll (see Robots) at the hut's window, also reporting to its home planet that humans do not believe in UFOs.

An entertaining short, with three groups of aliens believing they have participated in First Contact with humans. The animation style varies depending on the situation: the rural landscape is lifelike, whilst for the first alien and his spaceship it is inventive: swirling, disorientating and fluid. [SP]

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