Dior Homme – Un Rendez Vous
Background and summary of advertisement:
Dior Homme, the menswear division of French clothing retailer Christian Dior, is running “Un Rendez Vous”, an online short film directed by Guy Ritchie, starring Jude Law and Slovakian model Michaela Kocianová.
The film begins with Jude Law’s character speaking into the telephone, seeming to threaten the unheard voice on the other end. While doing so, his blonde assistant helps him don a suit before he trudges out to fulfil his mission.
As Jude Law drives through Paris’ nighttime streets, the other half of his phone call plays over the scene, and is revealed to have been delivered by a woman, in tones that are more sexually suggestive than threatening.
The movie climaxes with the pair standing a distance apart, silhouetted against the Eiffel Tower in an empty plaza at sunrise, each determining whether or not the other is their mystery date.
As we learned this week during COM101, schemata are internal representations of objects and sequences of actions, which help us identify and organize incoming information.
The plot of this short movie is brilliantly crafted to make use of human schemata to distort our initial perception of it.
The opening of the film depicts a smartly dressed Jude Law on the phone seemingly threatening the person on the other end of the line. Coupled with the company of a beautiful busty blonde, this depiction evokes a schema from memory, a schema containing information on such events based on the viewer’s experience. This schema helps the viewer draw inferences to fill in information about the scene, as well as ascribe meaning beyond what is described directly in the ad. In this example, as most audiences would have watched the classic James Bond movie, they would immediately link this to instances where James Bond too smartly clad in a tuxedo alongside his attractive counterpart threatens the enemies. Hence, the viewers past experiences from having watched James Bond movies lends a sense of coherence and meaning to a scene that is otherwise incomplete in letting them know what exactly is happening, or is about to happen.
The viewer then uses this schema to analyze what is about to happen next and drafts their own script. In this case, they perceive that Jude Law after hanging up the phone with the “bad guy” is about to set out on a mission to hunt them down and exterminate them. However, the scriptwriter at this point then twists the plot completely by offering us extended information that was not revealed previously. He reveals the true identity of the anonymous character on the other end of the line to be that of a woman, who playfully entices and is seducing him to come look for her.
As this movie is to promote Dior Homme, I think that the hidden message behind this movie is to show viewers that although language, speech and images may be deceptive, what we make of and identify using our schemata may not be entirely reliable and may at times distort our perception of reality, the exclusiveness of Dior Homme is irreplacable and can not be distorted and mistaken for any other.
What is your take on this advertisement? And yes Jude Law so smexy(:
Brightest Little Firefly In Her Jar 
Yeps i agree with you that hidden message behind this movie is to show viewers that although language, speech and images may be deceptive. It is not what we think it is and that sometimes behind every message there is a hidden meaning or agenda to it. You cannot just look at things on the surface, sometimes theres more to it than just what you see.
I read the summary before watching the advert, and I dont think I could have understood it without reading about it first.. But once again thats just me. The play on words was good, I did think that he was some action character who was going to beat up a baddie. Or a baddie beating up another baddie. It shows that human behavior is not always predictable and not everything has to follow a script/schemata.
I must say I am fan of Dior Homme, having so much of its collections that are bursting my wardrobe. I guess most fashion houses film their collection in an artistic way. You need to look beyond what subjects are communicating. The main thing is to look at the designs they are wearing besides the plot. Good job babe for posting this fashion entry.
Dior Homme?
Way to make it sound foreign when its just the chemicals with unflattering names like perfernol and something Benzedrine that are different between this expensive concoction and the 5 dollar stuff you get in serangoon road. This add is trying to sell a lifestyle, a lot like apple, rather than a good product at a competitive price. If you can afford the other trappings that you need to enter the lifestyle seen in this add, then wunderbar, but if not, open thine eyes.
Yes Rahil but isn’t that what all products aim to achieve? Differentiating their “branded” products from others seen to be inferior, and deeming it to be irreplaceable. Some sort of branding can torpede both the price and fame of the product itself, and in the long-run enable them to reap huge profits.
I loved the twist! I think that the director was very successful in utilizing human schemata here. I too fell for it, thinking that Jude Law was the bad guy.