Do you ever like to imagine stories about people you see on the street? Dove asked female strangers to share first impressions of one another on video, and the results are strangely uplifting.
The video, which was funded by Dove and directed by Pinny Grylls, uses a split screen to juxtapose the women offering their imagined conclusions about these individuals’ lives, and the reaction shots of those being commented on. It makes for uneasy viewing, at times — one woman looks at another and says simply “Divorced” and when the roles are reversed, the second woman says back ” ‘I’d like to do what you would like me to do,’ that’s what that face says” — but there are sweet moments, too. When a middle-aged woman with close-cropped hair says a twenty-something blonde “Loves her mum,” the younger woman actually tears up. “She’s got very nice moles,” says one woman, “I like moles on faces, and freckles.” When an older white woman says a young black woman with dreadlocks is “the face of a very modern youth,” I almost cringed, expecting some sort of borderline patronizing ‘Gosh society has gotten SO multicultural!’ remark. But all she meant was that women in their twenties no longer have to go out with pancake foundation to face the world. It’s all very cute and meaningful, and the point is clearly to remind us that we are all individuals, since at the end the various women tell us who they are, really, and it’s sometimes surprising (and wonderful) in the way that it’s surprising (and wonderful) to find out the dowdy downstairs neighbor is actually a slam poet, or whatever, and when was the last time you could say an ad by a beauty company was ‘meaningful’, anyway? This feels kind of like consciousness-raising, or affirmation, only without the taint of granola earnestness, and it will make you smile.-
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