From my perspective, the main idea of this short film is everyone cannot see the boy’s mermaid friend, yet trying to convince the boy that the mermaid does not exist at all. Eventually, the boy escaped from the torture with his mermaid friend.
I think the author is trying to describe the strict censorship of imaginary arts or fantasies during that period. In the film, the only character who is able to see the imaginary mermaid is the young boy, who is at the age of imagination. The adults torturing the boy with highly inhumane means is a metaphor for the censorship or education at a time when imagination is considered to be useless even harmful. I lived in China for 15 years and I can understand this very much. China has very strict censorship on everything. Anything besides study is seen as a waste of time. At the end of the film, embracing his imagination, the boy escapes from the harsh world for good. This ending is happy and sad since the boy can only keep his imagination alone.
My interpretation of the ending is the boy committed suicide. After the torture, the boy lost his imagination and life became meaningless. For a young boy, killing his fantasy is like killing his existence. Without his mermaid friend, and being pushed to the edge, both figuratively and literally, the boy lost all his hope and jumped off the brink. In the afterlife, the boy and his imaginary friend live happily after.
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