Thursday, October 23, 2008

Pantene Chrysalis

San introduced me to this short movie:



It's really a short movie (4:03), and it's a million times better than most thai flicks i've seen, despite it's length. It's the blending of music and moving stills that creates such an emotive force within me that I get goose bumps every time I saw this. And I've watched it at least five times. There is really only one sound track in this short film, it's none other than Pachelbel's Canon in D. The movie blends in the touching parts of the film with the touching parts of the song, creating an emotive resonance that can only be amplified by the melancholic nature of the violin and piano. There is only around 4 lines of spoken dialogue, but like the classical piece without lyrics, the movie without dialogue makes one focus on the emotional aspects of the film. Climatic scenes are punctuated with short and sharp jabs of the violin. Violent scenes are accompanied by the jarbled and forceful piano song (i don't know which piece is that, can anyone trained in such music kindly enlighten?).

I really like the scene when the camera pans slowly to the broken violin, made to work one last time using scotch tape. The song slowly sinks into your emotions, which is then followed by the quick stabbing of the violin and ends abruptly. Amazing!

Do notice the butterfly towards the end. I think that's what san is showing me :)

The butterfly breaks out of the chrysalis, which is the cocoon like thing that a caterpillar wraps itself during the first stage of the metamorphosis. When it breaks out of this cocoon, the caterpillar changes structurally, to the extent that one cannot see any similarities between the former and present self. I suppose that that is why the short film puts a butterfly towards the end. It shows both the metamorphism undergone by the girl as she reaches new height in her music (she finally understand what it means by music being 'visible'), as well as the main purpose of the short film - to sell more bottles of pantene chrysalis.

6 comments :

Noob-trader said...

Canon in D is by Pachelbel right?

la papillion said...

Hi noob,

Changed that already! Thks!

PanzerGrenadier said...

Hi LP

It is actually a Pantene commercial! But at 4 + minutes long, is really a mini-film with a storyline about overcoming adversity etc...

The commercial element came out in the last part with her hair flowing but overall a very interesting commercial!

The Thais make good stories even with commercials!

la papillion said...

Hi PG,

Hey hey, actually thai's commercials are quite good. Not the first time I've seen such good ones :) But this one is indeed very special. If the commercial wants to make the viewer remember it, it had succeeded in me, haha

Anonymous said...

Hi,could you please tell me the song used in the ad? please

la papillion said...

Hi anonymous,

Sorry...i'm not sure what that song is.