I don’t want to admit how many times I actually watched this commercial. But if I did watch it in excess, it was for the benefit of the class. The screenshot above is from the very beginning of the ad, before the waitress approaches him and triggers the dinner writer into a non-linear exploration of how he ended up on a journey of discovery in an expensive piece of German engineering. The book next to his laptop is titled “Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road”. A tiny nod against plagiarism?

I didn’t think much of this bit, where she asks if she can read his work until I had read a bit more Whitman. These two are alone in the diner and they make a connection over some writing. Maybe they are attracted to each other? But if Whitman thought that his writing was a touch, then Lonely Diner Man is touching Empty Diner Waitress. And after this we hit the road with Lonely Diner Man. I heard that when characters in a movie take a road trip, it’s a metaphor for a journey of discovery, that someone in the car is going to end up changed on a deep level in the end. I wonder what L.D.M will learn?

After some scenes of L.D.M zipping through the American landscape we see him sitting at home, or maybe in a hotel, but he’s behind glass and the world is out there were he can see it, but he isn’t experiencing it and his life is in chaos. I read an interview with the ad agency that did this commercial and they said it was supposed to be non-linear, which I guess is good because they put the poem in there out of order as well.

Back at the table, we see the laptop on which the Lonely Diner Man was typing. I couldn’t see exactly what he was writing, but it doesn’t look like a poem. It looks like a script to me. Maybe he’s writing his own Volvo commercial.

But once he gets back in his Volvo, look fast, there’s the Whitman book again… casually tossed on the wood grain and leather interior of Lonely Diner Man’s vehicle of discovery. We see him drive past bison, and mountains and stand in the snow and write in the car. But….

Back in the diner, L.D.M looks up at the waitress who asks him again “What are ya writin about?” Talk about non-linear. Didn’t she already ask him that? And that’s the point at which I said, “I need to watch that again”.

Volvo’s Song of the Open Road

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