If you’re going to hire Hong Kong artisan Wong Kar Wai to direct your commercial, be forewarned: you’re never going to get anything resembling straightforward or linear. Generally, you’re going to get an evocative, enigmatic and lush short film that’s probably as confusing as it is visually stunning; probably the type of commercial that after it’s done screening the befuddled company man turns to the ad exec who commissioned the spot and says, “Was that our ad?”
And the ad exec generally goes, (cue sad, squeaky and perplexed voice), “I don’t know.”
The director of “In The Mood For Love,” and next year’s “My Blueberry Nights” starring Norah Jones, Kar Wai’s latest ad for Phillips Aurea (Flatscreen HD TV sets), is naturally pretentiously titled, “There’s Only One Sun,” and is typically oblique, expensive, and sumptuously shot. What does it all mean? Who fucking knows, but one things for sure: it probably looks like million dollar sex on your flatscreen. Oh yeah, of course they’re all shot with Kar Wai’s right-hand man cinematographer Christopher Doyle, probably one of the greatest living DOP’s (director of photography) working today (if there’s not shrines made for this man yet, just you wait).
Wong Kar Wai – “There’s only One Sun”
Wong Kar Wai – “Midnight Poison by Dior”
Wong Kar Wai – Motorola Commercial
Stunning…as always.