Subtitled ‘A Love Story Between People
and Objects’, Metrobranding is a
documentary film directed by Ana Vlad and Adrian Voicu. It consists of interviews with middle-aged and elderly people reminiscing about the production of goods they helped to manufacture
pre-1989, before western-style consumerism hit Romania. The result of a planned as opposed to a
free-market economy, rather than competition for a share of customer spend,
Romanians were limited to a single brand for any given product. To explore this strategy, Metrobranding looks at six particular
brands that had monopolies and each of which was produced only in one town: the
Ileana sewing Machine, Finca plimsolls, the Mobra motorbike, the Pegas bicycle,
the Relaxa mattress, and the Star light bulb.
These were all familiar to the citizens
of communist Romania because they were ubiquitous, and this familiarity explains
the attachment people still have towards them, emblematic of a vanished era and
one evoking nostalgia for many. Those
who were involved in their manufacture look back and see good times for their
communities and pride in what they achieved.
They worked hard certainly, but had a sense of purpose. In a changing world some of the products
could not compete, and this is a story of changing tastes and decay more than
one of industrial archaeology. There are
many questions raised by the film though little attempt to answer them, but the
feeling of loss comes across clearly.
Some of the questions include: Why did
old brands fall by the wayside? Could
they not compete with more efficient production methods (the mattress factory
is still going, but looks inefficient) or cheap imports? Does monopoly lead to shoddiness because the
market is captive? Did products simply become
unfashionable because of their familiarity, or associations? Do they have a retro appeal? What happens to a town reliant on a single
commodity when that commodity is no longer viable (one thinks of Detroit here
as an example). When thousands worked in
a factory that operated round the clock, what do they do when the factory
closes and they lack the skills necessary for other employment?
There is surprisingly little emphasis in
the film on the politics which were concerned to build a society that could
have its needs met with limited resources, even if much of the output was for
export. This omission is a problem, as
decisions about how production should be organised were made centrally, and it
is unclear to what extent there is wistfulness for these vanished products rather
than for the old political system that authorised them. Such views were implicit, but not much
examined.
Times have changed – school students
were sniffy about the plimsolls compared to their trainers even though they looked
elegant and well made – but the film does highlight the issue of state planning
vs letting the market decide. We are used
to the idea of competition (or at least the notion of competition – there may
be cartels at work), but really are we any happier with having massive freedom
of choice when it comes to buying a mattress or a light bulb? Either way, the film has a broader dimension:
it may be specifically about a limited range of brands in one country, but it
touches on a universal feeling of loss for what is gone, wherever you happen to
live and under whatever system of government.
Source: YouTube/Cinepub
