The Last Journey – keeping it real(ish)

What can a Swedish arthouse film tell us about authenticity in advertising? Or in anything else for that matter.

Everything I know about advertising I learnt from the movies #16

Not an hour seems to go by on LinkedIn, without somebody talking about Swedish arthouse cinema.

Sorry, I meant not an hour goes by without someone showcasing their genius with a piece of content created with AI – on the bus on the way to work. Yes, some of it does look incredible. And some of it might even be Swedish. But with artificial intelligence, the problem is you usually get artificial results. No matter how good it can look, it is just not real. It lacks humanity. And it all tends to look the same. A brave new world of plastic content.

Released in 2024, and now doing the rounds of European arthouses, the Last Journey is anything but. It tells the very real story of a man taking his old and ailing father, Lars, on a last road trip to the south of France, where they used to go as a family on holiday.

The man is Filip Hammar, a distinguished Swedish TV presenter, journalist and filmmaker. He enlists the help of his equally distinguished friend and creative partner Fredrik Wikingsson, to both help with the trip and the filming. 

The film is in essence a documentary, but an unconventional one. Rather than simply observing the story and then weaving a narrative over it, in the form of a voiceover, it is made in a Cinema Verité style. 

Cinema Verité is an artistic film movement that originated in France in the early 1960s. But don’t they all. As the name suggests, it’s ambition is to show the truth, but in a way in which scenarios are sometimes artificially constructed, which the real-life characters then play out. And this is exactly what happens in the Last Journey.

Filip sees his father, rapidly slipping away. A man who had once been so full of life, has now lost interest in it. So, Filip comes up with the idea on taking him on the road trip, to re-ignite some of his old spark. And, of course, film it.

The story is made up of a series of kind of set pieces, along the journey and at their final destination. Each one is an attempt to recreate golden moments of past trips, to rekindle a joi de vivre (as they say in Sweden) in the old man. But it is all done in a very transparent and open way, as Filip and Fredrik discuss exactly what they are going to do. Filip rents the same apartment they stayed in many years before. And they even try to trigger Lars to repeat an old anecdote, through the timing of a train passing beneath the apartment balcony – just as had happened thirty years before. 

Despite the necessary element of artifice in how the story is constructed, it is vastly overshadowed by the pure humanity, sense of reality and authenticity. Lars never once seems to be playing a part. He is just playing himself as you see some of the old flame flicker again in his weary eyes: which moistens the eyes of audience – with both sadness and joy.

I’ve become a bit of a regular at our local arthouse cinema recently: driven partly by my love of the type of authentic independent films they show. But also, because our local multiplex burned down. Anyway, it has made me think about the state of modern advertising: much like modern cinema. Not burnt down, I mean. Not yet at least.

Advertising by its nature is artificial, but even before the advent of AI, it seems to have become even more disconnected from reality, and from the real lives of the consumers we are trying to reach. So much content is overblown, superficial popcorn, lacking real substance and human stories, that are often substituted for high-gloss effects and big star salaries. Like a Superbowl ad. And then there’s the morass of cheap social content, spewed out across every digital channel, like beer and Big Macs Saturday night streets.

The Last Journey might not sell a lot of popcorn (or beer or Big Macs) but it shows how deeply touching and moving communication can be when you make it more real. It is a beautiful celebration of the love between father and son. A story of the power of friendship and hope, valuing the most important things in life, and celebrating an ordinary life well-lived, before it inevitably passes.

The alternative could have been making a traditional feature film, with actors playing the real-life characters, performing a tightly written script. Maybe with Al Pacino in the lead role. Or his Swedish equivalent. The result could be great, and win Al a long-overdue second Oscar. But how could it have ever had the power of the “real” thing?

So, should you try a bit of Cinema Verité in your next campaign? Maybe, but as soon as everybody else starts doing it, the novelty will soon wear off. Alternatively, you could just try the verité by itself. It doesn’t have to be in Swedish.