As 2016 finally winds to a close, the return of Wes Anderson provides some respite from the gloom of the last 12 months. Funnily enough, it is not with a new movie – though one of those would be most welcome – but, of all things, a Christmas ad.
This is not the first time Anderson has concentrated his energies on commercials. He’s previously shot commercials for American Express, AT&T, Hyundai, Stella Artois and SoftBank. Most memorably, perhaps, in 2013, he worked on two films for Prada: Castello Cavalcanti – a short film featuring Jason Schwartzman as an unsuccessful race car driver who crashes his car in an Italian village – and an ad to promote fragrance Prada Candy L’eau, co-directed with Roman Coppolla and starring Lea Seydoux.
For Come Together, Anderson has directed a festive advert for H&M.
The 4-minute short features Anderson’s frequent collaborator Adrien Brody as conductor Ralph, in charge of coach 14 on a Darjeeling Limited-style train – the H&M Lines’ ‘Winter Express’ – as it travels through a snowy landscape on Christmas Eve.
Ralph is unphased by a “terrible inconvenience” – challenging weather conditions conspire with mechanical difficulties to cause a lengthy delay to the journey – and along with his assistant Fritz, he plans a “Christmas brunch” in the dining car.
“This story may resonate more than ever at a time in the world where we could all do with giving a stranger a hug,” says Brody in a statement.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDinoNRC49c
Come Together is unmistakably the work of Wes Anderson – warm-hearted and charming, with many of the filmmaker’s familiar tropes in evidence.
All in all, it will certainly do until Anderson’s next full-length feature – an animated film, no less, featuring the voices of Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum and Bob Balaban.
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