This 80-second film from three German film students poses an important question: If you owned a high-end Mercedes sedan, would you take it back in time so you could run over young Adolf Hitler? Understandably, Mercedes isn't impressed.
The students — Tobia Haase, Jan Mettler, and Lydia Lohse at the Film Academy in Ludwigsburg, Germany — shot the film to explore "if technology had a soul" by advancing Mercedes safety technology to a degree Isaac Asimov would have appreciated. Students of history will recognize the Austrian village where Hitler was born, the relevance of the final shot and the irony of employing a car brand Hitler used for official travel during his reign.
Nearly 50 years after "The Producers," Hitler jokes aren't exactly the edge of comedy. That's not the real brilliance of the film. The real commentary here is on the pretension of contemporary car advertising. The Mercedes marches through the Austrian peasant villages like a panzer, flaunting its wealth and power like the cruelest serf owner. And that's what all car ads, with their fulsome orchestral music and ridiculously overwrought light schemes tell you: If you buy our machine, you will transcend the madding crowd.
So yes, it's funny, let's go back in time and kill Hitler, but also, the ad depicts a sleek cobalt machine, an ultimate symbol of wretched wealth, heartlessly murdering a peasant boy. Wanting to kill Hitler is hardly a controversial opinion. On the other hand, suggesting that contemporary luxury cars might be evil death machines bent on permanent class warfare — now that's a subversive concept, and that's why the filmmakers had to insert several stern disclaimers from Mercedes that the ad was in no way backed by the company. Four stars to the students for this one.
Source: Yahoo!
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