... call Stepford Lives, living ...

Saw a short film on Channel 4 last the blurb says..

Stepford Lives: Jacques Peretti's bleak comic drama about a fictional housing development called Harton Wick - a frightening vision of suburban life. Designed for individuals with no individuality, it focuses on three of its inhabitants.



This was the ultimate minimalist TV film. The film consisted entirely of shots of objects, based around the fictional new village of Harton Wick. Houses, roads, office interiors, cars, restaurants were shown without there once being a shot of people, or sign that people existed.

They images were linked with a voice over which described the lives of three people in the town a guy who was in the process of losing his job, a professional inhabitant of a show house of a new development and a girl working in the restaurant.

The voice over discissed motives of the people and gave a parade of facts, which when you though them through later were worrying, eg the major reason that 35% owners bought a sports utility vehicle was because of the 'clunk' of the door shutting. Sixty percent of alarm systems have the code '1234' so that their owners don't forget. Seventeen percent of men caress their hi-fi systems when alone.

The programme was entertaining, the use of graphics brilliant and it was thought provoking.