Sofia Coppola x Dior: So pink and Marie-Antoinette-ish!
David Lynch x Gucci: Where is the random 180° plot change?
Today, I stumbled upon this interesting site which I have taken these two videos from… Now this is a combination, Sofia Coppola and David Lynch! Although both commercials totally look like you would expect a commercial for perfume to look like (glamorous women, lots of make-up, perfect photoshopped skin-tone), I am amazed at how the both of them managed to get their own style into these commercials: Sofia Coppola’s video is just as clear and pastel-colored as every other of her movies and David Lynch’s has his trademark dark and mysterious tone coupled with an obviously crazy main character; the dancing moves are quite great though. I approve.
And now for more added randomness, I feel like watching “American History X”. I wonder why? Unfortunately it’s too late for it already.
Hahaha, Sofia’s is so… pastel! And the girl looks like the daughter of Kirsten Dunst and Scarlett Johansson if you don’t look too closely. :3
The thunder! The darkness! The blurred slow-mo! The overlapped image of something fast-moving! The Lynchness!
Indeed, their style perfectly came through.
Now I wanna see one by Akiyuki Shinbo! Shaft greatness!
LOL, the Gucci could have come right out of INLAND EMPIRE XD (the ending? the fact that “the loco-motion” sounds fairly similar to the song used in the ad? :tassilo: )
I know! The two women also totally made me think of Patricia Arquette somehow – while Sofia Coppola’s way too blonde french girl totally looks like La Dunst indeed XD
The Lynchness! This makes me think of our recent discussion that David Lynch’s short films must be failures because he’s just too random – well apparently this is not entirely true. :)
I too think that Akiyuki Shinbo needs to make commercials; but in his case, I think it doesn’t apply so well. He has his own style, but ultimately he makes a large variety of shows and so it’s not like everything he makes looks the same.
I say this was so ahort, that he didn’t need a plot, so it didn’t drag, i.e. suck. It’s just like cords betweeen 0.9 and 1.5m are the most prone to tangle up, it’s a proven fact!
The first one has a light and airy feel, and makes me want to watch Lost in Translation again (I agree with Pixelmatch)…and add Virgin Suicides to my to-watch list.
The second one…the Lynchness! *laughs* yeah, there’s that dark, unbalanced undercurrent and the cityscape cuts are great. I thoroughly approve of the choice of music too. ^_^
I don’t actually know of any instances where directors I’m familiar with make commercials, but I probably don’t realise it’s them! David Lynch, Hideaki Anno, Makoto Shinkai and Guillermo del Toro have styles I can usually spot a mile off though. I think Shinkai might have actually done and advert for a newspaper or similar.
@Pixelmatsch: You’re so right. One does not expect a plot for indeed, and so David Lynch really could have done whatever he wanted, as long as the glamorous woman is included ;)
@Martin: More than Lost in Translation, the movie is quite a lot like Marie Antoinette because of the frenchness, heh.
Virgin Suicides was interesting, but most of all, it is quite an atmospheric movie, i.e. it takes ages for the plot to develop. And at the end, you wonder about what the whole purpose of the film was about – or so I thought years ago when I watched it.
For me, the Lynchness is especially represented by the two diametrically different women (a recurrent theme for him, I suppose), I completely forgot to mention that. And yeah, the music, heh, it’s “Heart of Glass” by Blondie.
Makoto Shinkai made some promos for games, I think. I am not sure about the others, but I’d definitely be interested in what how their perfume commercials would look like, heh.
Very nice. Please allow me, if you don’t mind, add the below clip to your already impressive list.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Mha26vA-tkw
This is an animated commercial for Louis Vuitton titled “Superflat Monogram” produced by Takashi Murakami. I think this is worthy of mention because like your examples, Murakami here also managed to infuse the clip with his own unique style.
My! That’s quite a great video, thank you for pointing me towards it! It does look extremely stylish, but I guess the difference between Takashi Murakami and Sofia Coppola or David Lynch is that I am quite familiar with the latter two, who have made some movies I like a lot. Therefore, whether this Louis Vuitton commercial is typical for Takashi Murakami or not, I cannot judge. However, if this is his style, I’d definitely be interested in seeing more.
Apart from that, you have an interesting blog there! I’ve just added you to my feed reader and I hope to see more from you. ^^
Thanks for the kind words ^^/. I also am interested in the kind of movies you’ve covered, although I ain’t a film buff, I loved what little I’ve watched from European films such as Amelie and Pan’s Labyrinth, so I’m definitely open for more.
I can’t believe Amélie and Pan’s Labyrinth is everything you watched – to me, THE european movie is more like italian realism, the nouvelle vague and contemporary spanish movies by, say, Almodóvar or something like “El Espiritu de la colmena”. I actually think that these would be the things that might be even more interesting for you than Amélie (although that one is a great movie too).
I actually always find it difficult to recommend something. ^^
Well, maybe you will start loving movies as well! The great thing about being a film buff is that there seems to be endless material for you to discover. For example, all the titles you’ve mentioned on your blog, even the most obscure ones, are known to me. It happens that I encounter a completely new anime, but this rarely happens. Compared to that, there are tons of obscure movies that I have never heard of; whenever I go on a movie website or blog, I discover new things. It’s quite fascinating, I think.
Ah, Amelie and Pan’s Laybr aren’t the only Euro films I’ve watched (^_^b), I just didn’t want to make a pointless list, which isn’t really impressive anyway. My “to-see” movie list is already long but I’ll put your recommendations on priority.
I definitely agree with you about films > anime in terms of sheer quality materials available. Some of my readers already know this, but I am somewhat a Korean film buff (which of course…is from what I gather, not that grand compared to what Euro films have to offer). Especially directors like Kim Ki Duk I am a HUGE fan of. I decided to blog about anime because there are many blogs/sites that already cover Korean films more comprehensively and eloquently than I can ever will, while there seems to be a shortage of blogs/sites covering obscure anime titles like Mari Iyagi. I thought about covering both Korean films/anime, but those two readerships tend to collide with each other and that wasn’t something I was willing to risk.
…sorry about the rambling, won’t happen again T_T
Oh, my “to-see” movie list is incredibly long, and I actually feel incredibly not at ease about recommending things, because even with people who I feel similar to, I don’t have the same tastes. And so these ‘general recommendations’ I give at the end of my movie reviews cannot apply to everybody, of course. ^^;;; But I’d be interested to see what is on your “to-see” list now!
I figured that you like Korean films, and I do think that a lot of them are very strong; much more so than Korean anime from what I have gathered so far at least. Korean movies seem quite unique to me in many aspects, for example, I love some of Park Chan-wook’s movies. I even follow the movie popularity charts in Korea a little, haha. But oh, I have only seen “Bin-Jip” by Kim Ki Duk – and I definitely want to see at least “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring”, because Shii loves it so much.
I agree with you that there really aren’t many blogs that deal with more obscure anime, but perhaps this is also because they tend to try to promote themselves less? If you hadn’t commented on my blog, I wouldn’t have known about you either, so I guess I’m lucky now. ^^
And please don’t feel bad about rambling, I have found it to be very interesting!
Bleh Korean animation industry is nothing x_X but yes, Korean films are still strong. “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring” is definitely Kim’s strongest movie (something many will I agree with me), but I find that “Bin-Jip” is his most beautiful work (something which also many will agree with me). Please approach some of his works with caution though, they’re really brutal and to some, distateful in the way he paints women. Bah, now that I feel like making an off-topic post on introduction to Korean cinema, hopefully that won’t turn too many anime readers off :3
Oh, please write such a posting! I’d be interested, and I totally think that you should never refrain yourself from writing something when you feel like it. Just mark it as off-topic if you think it’s necessary, but in general, it shouldn’t keep people off from coming back to your blog. ^^ Also, I am sure a lot of anime people are also interested in movies, especially japanese/korean ones.
I definitely shall add “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring” onto my list, perhaps soon? :)
Also yay, you got a Gravatar! What character is it, I wonder?
Heh, I always had a Gravatar…it just looked so plain that no one could distinguish it T_T.
The character is from the popular American animation, Avatar: The Last Airbender. She’s named “Toph”, an incredibly awesome character! My last entry was a spoiler-free look at why it’s such a great show, so maybe that might encourage you to at least check out few episodes ^^
I’m sorry for being unable to discern your gravatar O___o Was it just white?!
Ah, Avatar. Of course I still remember your comments on it, and I must admit that I haven’t watched American animations for… ages now. It does look pretty good to me though, maybe I’ll give it a try one day, but right now, anime already is encompassing my life. ;)