Call it morbid humor, good spirited fun or both. Whatever your take, Smirnoff’s "Diamond" is an offbeat, comedic piece of filmmaking that has a charm about it despite an ending that amounts to a monetary payoff for a relative’s death.
We open on a home next to a freeway. The camera takes us inside the house to show a rather homely looking man chomping down on a snack, which looks like pork rinds. One of the rinds gets stuck in his craw, he chokes to death and then we hear him tell us his story.
"It was only when I died that life got interesting," he relates, as the spot shifts to a funeral parlor with a coffin on display. At the sparsely attended service is Morton, the deceased’s brother.
Next, the dead man identifies himself as being the contents of an urn that’s buckled in the front passenger seat of Morton’s automobile. Our initial thought is that perhaps Morton is transporting the ashes to be scattered at sea, carrying out the wishes of his dearly departed sibling. But instead the car drives up to a futuristic looking complex. The company sign reads: "Live On."
"They do some amazing things with carbon," says the deceased about Live On. "What takes nature a million years takes them no time."
Greeted by a male scientist and an attractive female attendant at the front lobby of Live On, Morton hands the urn to the man and goes to wait outside with the woman. We are then taken through the process as the ashes are treated with state-of-the-art, high-tech equipment. The deceased explains that the process involves sifting, rinsing and filtering the ashes repeatedly. Then, he says, after all "the nasties" are dumped out, you end up with something precious and invaluable.
Morton is next seen walking into a neighborhood pawnshop. Instead of an urn, he’s now carrying a small jewelry box. He opens it, revealing to the shop proprietor a perfectly shaped, high clarity diamond. In exchange for the diamond, Morton receives a wad of cash.
The deceased explains that Live On can turn "Mister Butt Ugly" into "a girl’s best friend," at which point we see the diamond on a tooth, gracing the voluptuous mouth of a woman. Never has human soot looked so good on a lady.
A parting product shot of a bottle of 10-times-filtered Smirnoff Vodka then appears on screen—paralleling the libation to a gem of a find. A supered slogan reads, "Not the usual."
The Traktor collective from Partizan, London, directed and produced "Diamond" for J. Walter Thompson, London. The DP was Ben Seresin.
The agency creative team included creative director Nick Bell, art director Anita Davies, copywriter Jonathan Budds and producer Denise Connell.
Editor was Joe Guest of Final Cut, London. Colorist was Jean Clement of MPC, London. Audio post mixing was done at Jungle, London. Sound designer was Pete Rayburn of Soundtree, London.
