Kevin Dart & Stéphane Coëdel: A Year of Sun with Mr. Persol

Posted by Michelle Higa Fox


While global climate change has made January feel more like autumn than the dead of winter in New York, I still yearn for the sunny days in Kevin Dart and Stéphane Coëdel’s collaboration A Year of Sun with Mr. Persol.


Produced for PERSOL // ©MMXII

PRODUCTION: Passion Pictures
DIRECTED BY: Kevin Dart // Stéphane Coëdel
PRODUCER: Ryan Goodwin-Smith
ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Jen Coatsworth
DESIGNERS: Kevin Dart // Chris Turnham
ANIMATORS: Jeremy Pires // Nelson Boles // Nick Appleton
ANIMATION ASSISTANT: Mariano Melman
COMPOSITING: Stéphane Coëdel // Celine Desrumaux
EDITING: Stéphane Coëdel
STORY: Kevin Dart // Stéphane Coëdel // Elizabeth Ito // Chris Mitchell
SOUND AND MUSIC: Dave Newby

AGENCY: Winkreative, London, UK
CREATIVE DIRETOR: Tyler Brûlé
DESIGN DIRECTOR: Maurus Fraser
ART DIRECTOR: Silke Klinnert
ACCOUNT MANAGER: Ariane Elfen
COPYWRITER: Matthew Temple
PRODUCER: Julie Thyman

One Comment

Anonymous

Brilliant! It’s subtle but once you take the time to decipher the narrative, one can easily decode this takedown of modern consumer capitalism. 

Mr. Persol ( a criminal alias if ever there was one ), constantly travels the world, forever evading the authorities. The cops are always two steps behind this cold-blooded affectless sociopath.  

Like Tom Ripley, he finds it easy to cozy up with the vacant children of the leisure class. He charms one young woman by being withholding and unavailable – no doubt, just like her oligarch father.  If their relationship were to last longer than a year, she might see the dead eyes behind those tinted lenses.  However, by the time they travel to their next hemisphere, in search of sun, she has disappeared and he is alone. She might as well be wearing knock-off Ray-Bans where she is now. 

The most telling clue to Mr. Persol’s appalling nature is the stack of sunglasses on his desk at the end.  If the eyes are the window to the soul, he needs as many blackout shades as possible.

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