Ralph Styles Ultra
2019 · 15m · USA
Directed by Nic fforde
Genres: comedy, experimental, satire
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, theatrical
A period-perfect 1970s cigarette advertisement slowly unspools into surreal satire, with debonair performances, precise costuming, and music that twist the ad's debonair posturing into something stranger and more obsessive. What starts as a parody keeps going somewhere else entirely.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Fifteen minutes of cigarette ad recreation — and somehow by the end it's a tragedy about lust and jealousy. Nic fforde spelled his own name in lowercase, which tracks perfectly.
A 15-minute period-perfect cigarette ad that mutates past parody into actual cinema — that commitment-to-the-bit-until-it-becomes-the-thing is a Maddin trick, and the meticulous craft is its own reward.
15-minute period-perfect 1970s cigarette ad that mutates past parody into something genuinely cinematic. The exquisite art design and costuming committing fully to the bit is the craft choice that lifts this above mockup.