Manipulation & exploitation
Czech Dream
Directed by Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda
(Czech Republic, general release June 2005, 87 mins)
Reviewed by Manny Thain
CZECH DREAM is a film about a hypermarket that doesn’t
exist. Not only that, it says so on the publicity material. It is reliable
information. It is the sort of information that a few thousand Czechs in the
middle of a field on 31 May 2003 could have made good use of.
Czech Dream (Cesky Sen) is the name of the hypermarket that
does not exist. The ad campaign to launch it, however, did. This fly-on-the-wall
film charts its course. It is a glimpse into how big business and advertising
manipulate people. It is very funny in places, always interesting, sometimes
uncomfortable.
Near the start, Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda, stand in an
empty, frozen field near the capital, Prague. They explain the film. They put
the viewer in the picture.
First stop for the Czech Dream team is to get the right
look. The Hugo Boss boss is anxious to stress their mutual agreement: "The
logo". An ad agency teaches them how to act, talk and walk: "Now, you’re a
perfect, semi-finished product". From an agency that boasts, "Our products work
for things that suck or don’t even exist", they get their own logo: "It’s a
bubble that will burst soon".
The off-the-wall ads are to generate interest: "Don’t
spend", "Don’t go there". The focus group seems pretty sure: "Don’t come? Sure
I’ll come!" They enlist families, using radio ads: "We hardly remember what it
was like before supermarkets"; "Ten years ago we weren’t buying water". A theme
tune is written, recorded and released.
The project provokes uneasy discussion in the agency around
the slogan, "You won’t leave empty handed". "We don’t lie", one insists. His
colleague is less reticent. He compares all advertising with the Sistine Chapel
ceiling, "a commission like any other".
It is fascinating and a little frightening seeing a woman
rigged up to cameras, a tool of the trade to gauge the impact of logo,
headlines, products and prices. After the presentation the researcher says that
she does not agree with misleading campaigns.
Czech Dream: "Then why did you take part?"
Researcher: "You got info on how to market the most
convincing ad so it would affect the recipient. The decision to manipulate the
recipient was yours. The responsibility is yours". It’s tense. This interview
ends abruptly.
The film builds up to its edgy finale, opening day 31 May,
of which Klusak and Remunda say: "The attitudes of the ‘manipulators’ are
confronted in the film with the opinions of the ‘manipulated’. Both camps are
exposed through a seemingly absurd situation, and they are forced to define
their attitude towards something that in reality doesn’t even exist".
The filmmakers are worried that no one will come. But they
do, a few thousand. Reactions range from disappointment to hilarity, resignation
to rage: "I guess it’s a stunt to show how greedy people are. But it still bums
me out"; "I’m happy because it got me out of the house"; "Our politicians make
fools out of ten million. And they do it every day". A young man is asked what
the lesson is: "Don’t believe filmmakers… Now I’m certain I won’t be voting for
the EU".
Czech Dream gives a sense of some of the dramatic changes in
the last 25 years since the collapse of the Stalinist regime. The directors say:
"We were born in an advertisement free country, with Communist propaganda all
over the place. And then it turned the other way round". They point out that 126
hypermarkets were built in five years: "The Czechs started shopping in these
hypermarkets more than people in the other post-socialist countries, and the new
edition of the Czech dictionary of neologisms [new words or meanings] features
words like ‘hypermarketomanie – a pathological addiction to shopping in
hypermarkets…’"
The film is provocative. It makes you think. It also made
Czech national news and led to questions in parliament. Czech Dream hit the news
alongside the referendum for Czech Republic to join the EU, and the two issues
got connected. People asked: Is there anything behind the slick EU referendum
campaign? Is it another mirage?
There is a dilemma, however. The viewer knows the situation,
most of the people in the film do not. In fact, the film uses the manipulative
techniques available to expose those self-same methods – and three quarters of
the funding came from advertising. It’s subversive. And it’s exploitative.
Dramatically, that adds to the tension and unease. The questions are left
hanging in the air. Back at the start, the frozen field, Klusak and Remunda say:
"We’ll see", then, "You’ll see". That’s a good idea. Check out this
hypermarketing.
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