Czech Dream (Český sen) is a semi-documentary film about a hoax advertising campaign for a hypermarket of the same name that fooled thousands of people and tried to expose the 'lies' in advertising. The film is a great fun to watch - it's well directed and very entertainingly puts snippets of the campaign together to give it a filmic quality rather than the feel of a TV documentary (it really would look better on the big screen). But the idea behind it is bogus. The problem is that the hoax is too elaborate and entirely believable. They use the elements of advertising that are normally used to tell the truth to lie and then to simply confirm everyone's prejudice about advertising. They don't say anything about the subtle powers of persuasion used in advertising; it's all about lying to people (through flyers, special offer leaflets, massive professional radio campaign, website, etc.) and then being 'surprised' when they show up for the opening. It's further problematic because it preys on poorer people - those who really need o look for the best deals from supermarkets. The website shows how much effort went into this. So the LA Times is wrong about the message of the film. But it's right about the fun of seeing it.

'Czech Dream' - MOVIE REVIEW - Los Angeles Times - calendarlive.com When we heed an advertisement, is it a choice or a surrender? That's a question given a vigorous working-over in the politically prankish documentary "Czech Dream," about a controversial 2003 hoax in which filmmakers Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda created a massive Prague-wide ad campaign for a new, low-price, everything-you'd-want "hypermarket" (a big box store, essentially) that thousands of early-rising citizens discovered on opening day was nothing more than a scaffold-held facade in an open field.

The Seatle Times goes even further trying to link the ease of the 'deception' the transition into the market economy further perpetuating the trope of justification of anything even a bit puzzling as an effect of the post-communist changes. Needless to say, they are completely wrong. Similar hoax would work just as well in the US and would no doubt produce exactly the same cliched commentary about the ills of advertising. blockquote>Movies | Prague consumers buy into filmmakers' hoax in "Czech Dream" | Seattle Times Newspaper It's also clear that "Czech Dream" (filmed in 2003) is more immediately relevant to the Czech Republic, where membership in the European Union was similarly pitched as the promise of a booming economy. In the United States, we take hyperbolic advertising for granted, so the film's impact has a kind of "so what?" aftertaste, but the ruse remains guiltily entertaining. ‹ previous  •  79 of 486  •  next ›