Five commercials that still get under my skin
I love commercials where a transformation of the environment takes place, and with it an internal transformation. Growth, emotional change, or a dreamlike hint of possibilities we're not aware are possible.
1. Pocari Sweat, "But I Saw You" (dir. Show Yanagisawa)
The way the anime tropes I grew up with are seamlessly blended into a journey towards connection, where the whole floor is literally shaking and waving, makes me think of those funhouses at the kermis when I was little, with the moving floors and rotating elements. Challenge yourself, but more than anything else just keep going, with positive energy.
2. Chobani, "Dear Alice" (dir. Bjørn-Erik Aschim / The Line)
This one makes me cry. It feels like such a world is possible, where humans live in harmony with nature, where labor lives hand in hand with meaning, community, and the interchange with nature. I think this film singlehandedly coined the term solarpunk, and I want to do more with those themes. Also read the Aldous Huxley novel Island if you like this.
3. Canal+, "The Bear" (dir. Matthijs van Heijningen)
Totally surprising. The first time I saw this I'd just had my first experiences with directors in London, big personalities that would put their feet on the desk next to you while you were working, and this film just has it all. It grabs those tropes and twists them around. Also the fact that it speaks French is just… chef's kiss.
4. Nike Stadium x Pigalle, "Goutte d'Or" (dir. Paul Geusebroek)
One of Paul Geusebroek's first commercials, and I think this film has singlehandedly convinced hundreds of boys and girls in Amsterdam they wanted to be like Paul. Together with his DP counterhalf Menno Mans, they created magic with the X-factor, with a huge ass X. I think they went to Paris and just shot stuff there, how amazing is that? The music, the bad-ass vibes, the celluloid colours and grain. A moment of magic that defined and inspired a generation here locally of filmmakers venturing into commercials.
5. Burberry, "Open Spaces" (dir. Megaforce)
This one needs no explanation, it just materialised what I love about this industry. To grab you by the throat and show you something you've experienced perhaps a thousand times in dreams, but what you've forgotten by the daily mundaneness of our work / personal life. To be part of this team, doing something important and unique. And again, the nature, being in touch with its wind, its subtle vibrations of energy and emotion, of manifestation, only to find each other as humans again. Deeply touching still.
