The Christmas Moment.

Christmas Most years at around this time I have a Christmas moment, a dislocated feeling, a bit warm but always with deep recognition, that Christmas is coming. It's either a snatch of music or seeing a decoration in the street or hearing two people talking about a present they're going to buy or a festive film on television (here's what happened in 2012). Sometimes it's simply a commercial which on the one hand leads to a sense of betrayal because the Christmas moment has been manufactured, but now and then it's just what I've needed. See if you can spot the moment during this Wes Anderson directed H&M advert when the Christmas moment happened:



On one level this feels like one of those YouTube "What if?" parodies (What if Wes Anderson Directed X-Men? etc). What if Wes Anderson directed a Christmas advert for a clothes company? But at this point Anderson seems entirely cognisant of his stylistic tropes to the point that he takes advantage of the viewer's understanding of them to intensify the effect, especially the camera pan which replaces a shot/reverse shot. But it works otherwise. I've shown this to someone who has never seen a Wes Anderson film before and she was enchanted.

No comments: