He
was Soviet Estonia’s Don Draper, the only Mad Man operating in a barking mad
system. Thanks to a unique set of circumstances, his Esti Reklaamfilm (ERF) Studio
prospered nicely as the only production house for television commercials in the
USSR. Peedu Ojamaa looks back on his strange but groovy career in Hardi Volmer
& Kiur Aarma’s The Gold Spinners (trailer here), which screens as
part of the 2014 UN Association Film Festival in the Stanford area.
Ojamaa
started at as a cub reporter, transitioning into newsreel production,
specializing in uncommonly watchable reports, at least by the admittedly dismal
standards of the Soviet media. Of course, Estonians were familiar with the TV
commercial as concept, because they were furtively watching Finnish broadcasts
(by all means, see Aarma’s even more rollicking Disco and Atomic War for the full glorious story).
Why
oh why, would a Socialist Workers’ Paradise need something as crassly
capitalistic as the commercial spot? To help perpetuate certain illusions, such
as the non-existent demand for some state-mandated products. Conversely, even
though scarcities like butter and sugar would immediately sell-out anyway, ERF’s
commercials created a false image of plenty.
Arguably,
Ojamaa became the first crony capitalist when Soviet planners, in their infinite
wisdom, declared one percent of all state enterprises’ annual budgets had to be
spent on advertising. As a result, ERF probably produced spots for products
that never really existed—and the likely examples are pretty incredible to
behold. Frankly, many of ERF’s commercials are considerably more entertaining
than Super Bowl ads, like animator Priit Pärn’s energy conservation PSA. While
prudish Party censors maintained a tight rein on programming, ERF was also apparently
“free” to pursue the old adage “sex sells,” so parents be warned.
Granted,
there is a good deal of nostalgia for the work ERF produced, but no illusions
regarding the corruption and inefficiency of the Soviet Socialist system. One might
say, Volmer and Aarma treat the Communist era with the irony it deserves. Regardless,
the impish humor of both the film and the commercials it documents are quite
winning.
