Please Stay Tuned

An interesting film I've seen not long ago was the experimental "Ein Tag im Leben der Endverbraucher" by Harun Farocki. It's basically a one-hour feature composed entirely out of TV ads (of the Seventies and Eighties), arranged so that they seem to depict the life of an average family. The effect is ridiculous bordering on the surreal. E. g. the wife is visiting the dentist. The event is cut together from several toothpaste ads of the same brand. First she's in a lady's toilet talking to a colleague. She announces that she's going to see the dentist, the colleague commiserates, our heroine says, no, no, my dentist always congratulates me on my teeth, that's because I take so-and-so which has been clinically tested by andsoon. Next she's in the waiting room (another actress now, but that hardly matters), all the other patients are suffering more or less quietly, but to console them she just tells them that her dentist always congratulates her on her teeth, and that's because she takes so-and-so which has been clinically tested by andsoon. Next she's with the dentist, and what do you know, he does congratulate her again on her teeth, the forgetful slob, but on the other hand, it's no wonder her teeth are in such a dandy state, he says, that's because she takes so-and-so which has been clinically tested by andsoon. Next, we are in an office, several men and women standing around in business suits, troubled about her colleague who has gone to see the dentist, what must she be going through, the poor thing. Enter our heroine (yet another actress avatar) telling everybody that it was no trouble at all, her dentist congratulated her andsoon, andsoon, you get the idea. The whole sequence takes about five minutes, and somehow there's something genuinely scary about it. News from the undead. In a few years, all blockbusters will probably look more or less like this.