’Operation Safe_House’ is not your usual short film that comes with a simple explanation for everything - no, this short is a commercial spot for a beauty salon. Now, here are two possibilities when it comes to understanding ‘Operation Safe_House’- first would be to take it as it is, and see it as a commercial spot for a hair salon, with no artistic value, but with a ton of shallow visual effects, with nothing that could be taken for granted. Secondly, you could see it as a short that transcends the limits of the humor beyond the classic lines, pointing out the anti-humor as a mechanism of creating genuine laughter.

 

Alex Sitnik's short begins with an extraterrestrial approach to this world, a view from above, a God-like view, and tends to go beyond that, knowing anything that can be known about any individual out there. This perception can be useful in a movie that is prone to go deeper and use it as a way of presenting a story as the basis of a narrative that is about to explode in a descriptive way.

​

Having seen other commercials in this festival in the past couple of years, we can say without any doubt that this one truly stands out. First of all, ‘Operation Safe_House’ has a story based on a screenplay, so it’s not composed of just some random shots linked together by the product they are trying to sell. Second of all, the massive amount of visual effects were put together to emphasize the importance of the product, and to point out the historical importance of the site it resides on. So, by all means, this ad successfully blends the two parts we were about talking in the beginning: it goes to promote a product while at the same time it has a mild philosophical background, tackling the idea of anti-humor when thinking of the seriousness of the approach and the product that benefits from this commercial.

​