Public Information Films are short commercial pieces often transmitted during commercial breaks that aim to inform, warn or scare the public on a specific issue. These range from safety (drink driving, crossing the road etc), to health (smoking, drug awareness etc) or sometimes more charitable causes (child abuse, foreign aid etc). This blog is not aiming to tell the "story" of PIF's, or to serve as a history or overview, there are better places for that. This will serve as an analysis and a deconstruction of specific items. I'm going to try and focus on the lesser known items, the ones that don't get talked about so much. Maybe one day they'l be a massive post of Lonely Water/Charley Says/Protect and Survive etc, but we're not talking about those today. We're talking about...this. (For those who don't like watching things moving on a screen, or if your in a rush, there's a spoiler riffic description just below.
SPOILER RIFFIC DESCRIPTION
Accompanied by the haunting and clichéd strains of Sweet Child Of Mine (made famous by Guns And Roses, covered by Everyone In The World Ever), a group of children so "cute" and well behaved they could only exist on television, prepare to go on some kind of trip while one particular child looks at a toy car in an ominous foreshadowing way like you did when you were a child. This is intercut with a "man" grabbing a slice of toast and getting in...the same car! Except it's not a toy. Its a proper car, with wheels and everything. I think this is going to end "well".
The children are now in a forest, pointing magnifying glasses at trees, presumably also singing "We like being alive, we like being alive" over and over. They look at the ground, poke at poor defenceless fish, dance around a tree, presumably in worship of some strange new God, and then sit on a mat. It's one of those school trips. Presumably Mrs Harbinger couldn't raise the money to go somewhere nice, like Alton Towers or North Korea, and instead settled for a forest that was probably about two minutes down the road. It's probably Michael Goves fault.
Suddenly, we're back with the well developed character on "man with shirt in car". Also suddenly, without anything resembling warning, the car flips off the road, and starts spinning...towards the kids! Who are also seemingly all completely smashed on Valium, as they seem to react with a...well, they don't react at all. They sit and watch with eerie passiveness while a car smashes on top of ALL OF THEM AT ONCE! You heard that right, an entire class of children DIE in front of your eyes. The toy car falls out of the dead hand of Creepy McForeshadow. As a voiceover intones how speeding killed the equivalent of a classroom of children, before we are met with the final kick in the balls, the caption SHAME ON YOU, over an empty classroom.
Shame on you. Yes, YOU! You are the man in shirt with a car (the real one, not the toy one). YOU killed all those kiddies. Flattened them like a dog in an avalanche. Shame on you. In all seriousness, its a bloody good slogan, on the same level as the Australian "If You Drink And Drive, Your A Bloody Idiot".
The best PIF's know that showing violence and death to shock is one thing, but nothing is more crippling then guilt. Put yourself in the position of someone who may have been responsible for killing a child in a speeding car. Knowing that what happened can't be undone. Knowing that the family and friends will probably never forgive you. Knowing that even if you don't manage to go to prison, you'l be known forever as the man who once killed a child for no reason whatsoever. There's no cure or remedy for that. By using such an uncompromising, unforgiving slogan, the ad is essentially pre empting all that. Saying "this is how you WILL feel if you drive just a bit too fast one day and take someone's life away".
Also worth pointing out is that this film comes from the DOE, The Department Of the Environment for Northern Ireland. I won't go into the, shall we say, difficult and troubled recent history of Northern Ireland, as I would be way out of my depth. Needless to say, Northern Ireland is a country which has had its fair share of despair and misery, and this outlook is reflected here. PIF's, being as they are essentially government messages, always reflect the climate and mood of the time. Although this PIF was produced and released this year, it carries the harshness and bleak, violent mood that has characterised much of Northern Ireland over the past. I didn't grow up there, but it did make me think. Would this ad be seen as that shocking in Northern Ireland, where normal programming was frequently interrupted by reports of death and destruction happening just down the road? Not that England isn't subject to violent imagery on television too, but often we are blanketed by the fact that the violence I often see on television is happening on the other side of the world, or the other side of the country. I have no idea what its like to be attacked on my own doorstep. But a lot of the audience for this PIF do.
All that said, while its not denying the above PIF is powerful and moving, it does have its flaws. It is perhaps cruel to begin with such a misleading tone. Would you watch the first half of that ad and think it would end with...that? It looks like we're about to get a nice cuddly voiceover telling us how much we all love Clover, all over this land. Or maybe a car advert, as the vehicle is featured quite prominently, save for any logo's or hint of branding of course. It is no exaggeration to say that the ending comes completely out of nowhere, without warning or hesitation. I'm sure that was the intention. Get people relaxed and soothed and then BOOM! DEATH! SHAME! And not only does the ending come out of nowhere, but it is EXTREMELY violent, without even showing a hint of blood. Its the equivalent of sticking on The Lion King for your little nephew, and then splicing in the last 20 minutes of Cannibal Holocaust. Its certainly effective, but...why the need to ambush people?
On the other hand, while the ending is shocking and upsetting, why don't the teachers or kids well...react? As I mentioned above, the kids just stare like there watching a particularly embarrassing birthday clown. Yes, you could argue that there in shock perhaps. But even then, they'd look scared or confused. These kids just don't look like...anything. Was that the directors point? I know it's meant to be a sort of metaphorical representation of the figure presented at the end, but surely that leaves us emphasising less with the children, knowing there little more then statistics.
Actually...maybe thats the point. Hmm....
Also, what's with the teachers? Sure, we hear one scream. One very short, staccato scream. Now, I've never seen a load of kids ran over (what a sentence!), but I imagine the nearby reaction would be hysterical! Women going into absolute screaming fits. Having nervous breakdowns. Not knowing what to do or say, just breaking down into pure despair and misery. Instead we get dead, dead silence. Again, maybe that was the point. The silence emphasising the void of misery we've found ourselves in. But imagine how much of a punch in the gut the sounds of screaming would have added. Maybe you could compromise. Show them screaming and crying silently. Now that would be fucking powerful. Not only have you killed a load of innocent kids, you've effectively killed the hopes and dreams of there parents, family's, teachers and friends. Shame on you indeed.
My other beef is a deeply personal one. But its possibly the most contentious point. Worse then the violence. Worse then the horror. Can we please...ban soft acoustic versions of songs sung by six year olds? Seriously, this is on EVERY advert now. Some twee voice with a poorly tuned guitar singing "Dont You Want Me" or "Tainted Love" or something like that. It's got marketing written all over it. Please kill this fad now. Run a car over it. VERY fast.
All joking aside, it's nice to see that the "scare them straight" mentality of the PIF is still very much alive, and just as powerful as ever. More on that next time....
P.S for the record, this is the best Sweet Child Of Mine cover.
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