Czech Dream
by Vt Klusk, Filip Remunda
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DVD Cover Information
Director: Filip Remunda, Vt KluskBrand: Hart Sharp Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-12-04
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: 8295670399
Studio: Arts Alliance Amer
Product features:
- Two students from the Czech Film Academy commission a leading advertising agency to organize a huge campaign for the opening of a new supermarket named Czech Dream. The supermarket however does not exist and is not meant to. The advertising campaign includes radio and television ads, posters, flyers with photos of fake Czech Dream products, a promotional song, an internet site, and ads in newspape
Movie Reviews of Czech Dream
Movie Review: the power of advertising and marketing--even if you don't build it, they will come
Summary: 5 Stars
Czech Dream is a documentary style film produced by two film students in the Czech Republic as their final project before graduating film school. The two young men, Filip Remunda and Vít Klusák, decide to do an experiment: they want to see what will happen when they create the false impression amongst Czech citizens that a major new shopping mall called Czech Dream will open. Will people come and take advantage of bargain prices that are almost ridiculously low? Will they be angry when they discover this was all a hoax? How will the filmmakers get the message out that this non-existent shopping mall (or, hypermarket) is going to open?
When the action starts, we see the film students give a brief introduction and then the film gets right down to business. The film students hire an ad agency that comes up with slick, appealing and manipulative ads for this soon to be opening shopping market with very low prices. Indeed, this hypermarket will be so special that it will be called "Czech Dream" and the film students get a children's chorus and a professional chanteuse to record a moving, passionate song about the mall, equating spending money and getting bargains at shopping malls with people fulfilling their life dreams. In fact, however, all that actually ever gets built is a flimsy storefront banner at the end of a large meadow field--with just some scaffolding behind it to keep the banner in place.
As I'm sure you can imagine, many people show up the morning that the supermarket is supposed to open--almost 2,000 would-be customers are there and the film students even go so far as to pose as managers during a ribbon cutting ceremony. It is only then that the people are able to walk across the meadow to discover that they've been tricked. More bitterness heats up when the people find out that government grant funds were used to pay for the film student's experiment.
I must say that the people who were tricked at the "opening day" event were much more controlled than Americans may have been. Only a couple of men said that they hoped the film students got beaten up; and not even those men touch them--although this could be because the cameras were rolling at the time. The majority of people philosophize that their greed to get something for practically nothing was their major motivator to come to the "opening day ceremony" for this phony hypermarket. They discuss amongst themselves the issue of joining the European Union which was something I did not expect. I also agree with the reviewer who writes that it is not pleasant to watch the elderly and the handicapped walking to the "store" only to discover they've been duped. Not nice.
The DVD doesn't come with any bonus features; I would have liked a commentary or two or perhaps some deleted scenes. However, the film is quite strong on its own and so this is a minor disappointment.
Czech Dream clearly illustrates the human desire to get something for almost nothing; this experiment could happen in any country with essentially the same results. The main difference, I believe, is that in some other countries the people, once they found out that they were tricked and that the money for the experiment was taken from government funds, would have been much angrier and less philosophical about the whole thing. It was somewhat cruel to dupe these people--especially the elderly and the handicapped. These two film students got off comparatively easy.
Summary of Czech Dream
Studio: Arts Alliance America Release Date: 08/05/2008 Run time: 90 minutesSimilar DVD Movies
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