There's a thing in my pocket

an extraordinary ad copy, enhanced by evocative visuals and a lingering voice over, Nokia N95 television commercial is not one thing, its many.

There's a thing in my pocket,
but it's not one thing, it's many
It's the same as other things
but exactly like nothing else.
It has an eye and an ear
that shares what billions of humans see.
It's not a living thing,
but if you feed it it will grow.
It can rally the masses,
it can silence the crowd.
It can speak a thousand words
but it has no voice.
It can find you the places
so you can get lost.
And it can let others feel
what you've just been touched by
There's a thing in my pocket,
but it's not one thing, it's many

Are we so dumb?

Bangalore Times, dated 6th August 07 carried a news item on how four beautiful ladies rediscovered their youth thanks to a magic potion called Olay Moisturizer. The creation was touted as being capable of bringing back vitality to the skin, reducing aging marks and making a woman appear more youthful.
This article, which covered about half the front page, was presented as a news item by the Times News Network. At no place was it mentioned that this was a product endorsement or an advertisement. It was worded so as to impart an impression of being an account of a new idea.
If that wasn’t enough, the same night on Zoom TV, a daily show called Maximum Style, featured the same four ladies. Here the design was even more preposterous. It was made to seem as if two weeks ago, the ladies had been presented with some mysterious blend to use on their skin and present their opinions on it after two weeks on the show.
And believe it or not, they all loved the product, they were glowing, had started looking younger, had started getting more time for themselves by saving the time spent with beauticians, their husbands had started loving them more, all in all, this concoction brought about a transformation in their lives in two weeks, such an elixir for happiness it turned out to be.
Now of course, they were just dying to find out what this spectacular manna from heaven was. The magician who could offer them deliverance, a learned scientist cum beautician cum researcher cum problem solver who, all the while was smiling smugly, listening to the beauties extol the virtues of his creation. I wonder why he didn’t get the product patented; he’d have the world’s most beautiful women eating out of his hand.
After the customary build-up and the inevitable break, the time of reckoning was announced, and with all the requisite fanfare, sushmita sen was introduced as the ambassador who would reveal the name and prevent the abduction of the future Nobel Laureate Dr. Getafix by Paris Hilton.
But for some reason, sushmita sen wasn’t too happy, maybe she didn’t get a free sample or maybe she felt there was not enough spotlight on her, maybe she just found the entire idea too ridiculous to be enthusiastic about it. In what was clearly the most dreadful performance of her life, she went about making the kind of claims even himesh reshamiya would hesitate to make, in such a desultory and contrived manner that it seemed as if she had been woken from her bed and forced to read the lines at gunpoint.
Irrespective of the actresses’ demeanor, the advertisers’ notion that the audience will be taken in by such monkey business proves the mental bankruptcy in the media/advertising sector in our country. It is also a perfect explanation for the innumerable ads which drain your patience instead of inciting to purchase. That’s why we get zero-imagination messages from financial services and banks, whose creators also may get confused between their own clips and the competitors. That’s why a brilliantly conceived 8 pm ‘aath ke thaath’ is a much less discussed ad than the exasperating priyanka chopra – saif – lux ‘love saga’

Silence

Bergman passed away this week. I wouldn’t call myself as big a devotee of his work as innumerable others but that’s probably because I didn’t or couldn’t appreciate them. In spite of that, my fervor for cinema has been greatly enhanced by some oh this great directors’ works like Smiles on a summer night, Silence, etc.

I was particularly moved by Smiles….., by the positive and exuberant tenor of the film, which, I thought, was otherwise lacking in his other movies like Through a Glass Darkly, Shame etc.

Through a glass…., which is often critically acclaimed as his finest work, is marked by a melancholy, in fact, an air of anxiety that underneath the tranquil exterior, a bizarre tragedy is waiting to happen. True, that’s what the director intends to portray, and in that context, it is brilliant, but, this rendered the whole movie too ‘sad’ for my liking.

Again, in most of his movies, I could never connect to the characters, be it the doctor and writer in Through a Glass, the philandering woman in silence, or the hermetic couple in Shame. They never appeared to be ordinary people leading ordinary lives; instead, they would always be a part of the directors’ own world than the viewers’ milieu which, along with Kieslowski, was a regular feature of Bergmann movies.

Of course, these opinions might sound juvenile and rubbish to some who swear by Bergmann and I’m sure there would be millions out there. Also, I don’t have any unalterable beliefs as I have barely seen six or seven of his movies. Maybe after watching some more of the prolific director’s movies, I might end up refuting my own views.

Living to the ninth decade of his life, he must have been pleased and content, conscious that his work will continue to be revered by multitudes for many decades, and maybe even centuries.