David Kolbusz Paints a Piquant Picture of Cannes

In the world of advertising there are always bottom-drawer scripts and ideas that have, so far and for various reasons, remained unmade. There are also those scripts that started with great potential, but ended up as damp squibs. Then there are those that could not – indeed, should not – ever be made. In his ongoing series, David Kolbusz, CCO of Droga5 London, plays devil’s advocate with the imaginary scripts that taste forgot. 

Client: Office du Tourisme de Cannes

Title: Less is More

We open on a man with dark eyes and a jagged nose, dressed in a pair of cornflower blue trousers and an open, white linen shirt. He takes a protracted draw from his cigarette and the long ash that hangs there like the ghost of past lungs-ful drops into his matted chest hair. The camera widens and we can see he is leaning against a railing overlooking the Croisette in Cannes. We also see that in his other hand – the one cresting off his cocked hip – he’s holding a punchy serving of rosé. He raises the full glass to his fuller lips (you could even describe them as slightly too large for his face, but they’re sensuous nonetheless) and the liquid slides down his throat as confidently as breath. With a casual flick of his wrist he tosses the glass on the pavement. It explodes at the foot of two passing German tourists who let out alternating shrieks. He smiles at them with a mouthful of crooked teeth and coughs, “Pardon” in a French accent as thick as his eyebrows. He turns to camera.

PIERRE: There are many persistent stereotypes about the French. People think we are rude. Callous. Intolerant. Conceited. Belligerent. And that we hate foreigners.

He looks down at the tourists. One of them is lying on the sidewalk wailing in agony while the other picks shards of broken glass out of his foot.  

PIERRE: They’re not wrong. But while we’re all xenophobic to an extent, some bits of the country are worse than others. Le Midi – or Southern France as you slack-jawed philistines will probably know it – find foreigners slightly less despicable. Perhaps we’re more tolerant because so much of our microeconomy is dependent on your clownish spending habits.

Sure, tourism plays a role all over the Republic, but if you were to look at France as a heat map, the CÔte d’Azur would be a cool blue, whereas some place like Paris would be an engorged, cock-red epicentre of Gallic-born hatred.

Pierre snaps his fingers and we are magically transported to the centre of overcast Paris. He strolls casually towards two British tourists sitting for a portrait by the river.

PIERRE: Nobody has less tolerance for the visiting masses than a Parisian. I mean, look at these sad English shits. They’ve come to Paris for an anniversary weekend away and hope to capture this memory with un portrait sketched on the banks of the Seine. Little do they know that when the artist turns his easel around they will see not a true likeness but an artistic interpretation of their worst selves – a loose rendering laced with crude social commentary. Their own personal Dorian Grays.

Pierre comes round the back of the artist and we see that unbeknownst to the couple, the man wielding a brush has painted an incredibly unflattering picture – almost childlike in its simplicity – and he’s graffitied the words ‘English Cunts’ across the top.

PIERRE: And if they refuse to pay for the pleasure of their own mockery, they will be shouted down with words they don’t understand at a pace they couldn’t possibly keep up with. Made to feel inferior like the mono-linguistic simpletons they are. But not in Cannes!

He snaps his fingers and we’re back in the blistering sunshine. 

PIERRE: Here, you mean nothing to us, so we let you do as you please. Even during the protracted pre-summer rush when the Palais is heaving with parasites from the film and advertising industry we just keep to ourselves and let you muddle through on your own.

As he walks past the Palais, he steps over an art director with piss-stained linen trousers writhing around, semi-conscious on the red carpet.

PIERRE: Sure there is a downside. If we see you lying in the gutter, half passed out and choking on your own vomit we won’t lift a nicotine-stained finger to clear the partially digested, acid-burned food lodged in your throat.

He sits down at a table outside a generic tourist trap restaurant and lights up another cigarette.

PIERRE: But that is the social contract. You pay 100 euros for a steak tartare that may or may not be actual dog food and we let you infect our cities like a syphilitic john who hates the feel of condoms.

A passing waiter offers him a plate of tartare. He takes it and stubs his fag out in the meat.

PIERRE: So come to Cannes! Sure, we may not care whether you live or die, but at least we won’t hold you to the same intellectual standards as our northern countrymen.

He sets the meat down on the ground below. A street dog so gaunt that his blistering skin barely stretches over his rib cage walks up to the festering pile, picks out the cigarette butt with his teeth and eats it.

A logo appears.

Tourisme Cannes

And a tagline.

Less Hate is More Fun.