MOVIE REVIEW : VIDEO WIZARDRY IN ‘CANNED GOODS’

For anyone who thinks TV commercials are the best thing about television, watching “Canned Goods” (opening today for a week at the NuArt) is like being set loose in a monstrous new supermarket on an empty stomach. This new compilation of award-winning TV ads from the International Festival of Publicity Films at Cannes for 1984 is a sensory delight, loaded with spectacular video wizardry, creamy imagery and sly marketing techniques.

Commercials make the ordinary seem exotic. Milk looks like white chocolate. Soft-drink fizz roars like Niagara Falls. Even motor oil seems so syrupy that you want to pour it on a stack of pancakes.

But “Canned Goods” is more than just a glossy exercise in salesmanship and visual craft. Packed with nearly two hours of spots from more than 20 countries, it also provides a whirlwind tour of our global village. The message is often the medium here, as we get an intriguing glimpse of the often wildly-different values, character and pop culture of each nation.

A British National West Bank commercial makes fun of English pomp and pretense, with even a mohawked punk coming off like an addled twit as he opens a new account. England’s nagging inferiority complex is also lampooned in a British credit card ad which shows a London businessman picking up the check after his American visitor’s card has been refused. In Finland, a public service ad offers a far more candid assessment of gender inequality than you’d see in an American commercial. It shows two stick figures as an announcer explains that both crudely-drawn characters have the same skills and job. Why does one get paid more? An animator silently draws genitalia on each figure, making one a man, the other a woman.

After a steady diet of light-beer commercials, international ads--with their irreverence, irony and dreamy imagery--are as refreshing as an icebox-full of Foster Lager in the Aussie outback. Most of the American ads focus on emotional appeal, playing up family ties, youthful energy and working-class camaraderie. The ads from the Continent are considerably more sexy and sophisticated--it’s like comparing Marlene Dietrich to Kate Smith. In America, housewives usually pitch salad oil; in a similar French ad, we see a Gallic Yuppie in his kitchen, preparing a special salad dressing for each of his former lovers as they arrive for a party.

Of course, you don’t have to be a sociologist to enjoy the visual treats here. There are plenty of clever parodies, ranging from a French Yoplait spoof of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” to a GTI Peugot commercial that plays like a James Bond trailer, with its souped-up sports car dodging on-rushing trains, helicopters and even a heat-seeking missile. The ads also take great delight in poking fun at the medium itself. A British Pils beer ad inserts its pitchman in old Hollywood movie clips, having him explain to Bogie and Cagney that “most of the sugar turns to alcohol, you see . . .”

The best ads put a fresh spin on a familiar situation.

This viewer’s favorite was a simple clip showing a young man, walking uncertainly down a quiet street. Finally, he approaches a small home and knocks on the door. After an agonizing delay, the door is opened by an older man who stares in disbelief and then embraces the visitor, who is obviously his son. As they weep with joy, an announcer says, “Time for reuniting. Congratulations, Argentina.” The ad doesn’t remind us of that country’s tragic past--its military junta, the missing persons and the stifled freedoms--but after you see those images, it would be hard to forget it.

‘CANNED GOODS’

A presentation of award-winning television advertisements a the International Festival of Publicity Films at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Various producers, directors and writers.

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes.

Times-rated: Mature.