Tuesday 29 September 2009

The Stylisation and Codefication of Melancholy

The Crew finished shooting the commercial on a broad tree-lined street in an American city. The ravishing blonde actress smiled coyly at the camera and blinked languidly. She was advertising a brand of hair dye. The sky was purple.

"Cut," the director called calmly. He was an obese, balding, pony-tailed man.
The actress' smile slowly faded. A slight breeze had picked up, rustling dead leaves by the side of the kerb.
The cameras were shut off and packed away. The actress, who was named Window, repaired to the trailer to change her clothing. The director waited a few minutes. He smoked half a cigarette and made clumsy small talk with the key grip. Then he awkwardly discarded the cigarette and extinguished it with his tennis shoe. He ambled over to the trailer.

An ambulance came screaming up the street, its blue lights pulsing.
It shuddered to a halt. The time was 4pm. The back door of the ambulance swung open.

The actress sensed the presence of the director behind her as she unclasped her bra. He came closer. He smelled of cigarette smoke. She felt him clasp a hand over her tit. She was debilitated by feelings of repulsion.

The siren had been shut off but the light continued to pulse. From the back of the ambulance four men emerged. They did not resemble paramedics. They wore tennis attire and had the perturbed, eccentric demeanour of mental health patients.
They carried assault rifles.

The director's attempted molestation of the actress was thwarted as both parties were distracted by the erratic crackle of gunfire. They moved to the window of the trailer to watch crew members being executed by what looked like manic tennis players. They key grip collapsed on the sidewalk, his thighs riddled with bullet holes. He screamed and gibbered. His eyes gleamed with anguish.

Upon executing six crew members and injuring seven, the tennis players ceased firing. They bundled into the back of the ambulance which duly sped off and which was duly replaced by another ambulance, this one containing authentic paramedics.

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