“I’m trying to find the image of a satisfied woman”

Sex sells (one of the primary rules of marketing). Therefore I was not surprised when I heard a marketing executive in the next room say “I’m trying to find the image of a satisfied woman”. Trawling through the various electronic libraries of photographs we hold, the art director couldn’t come up with anything suitable.

Later in the day the image appeared in my mind of Darryl Hannah in the video for the Robbie Williams song Feel. A blonde woman in her early forties, smiling slightly, leaning on a fence in the American Mid West. Kim Blacha was able to e-mail me a still, and it represented the post-coital state exactly.

The Feel video is one of the best short films ever made. Directed by Vaughan Arnell, the film stars Darryl Hannah as a ranch owner, with Robbie Williams as a drifter-slob (a role he plays very convincingly) employed as a ranch hand. After establishing shots of employer / employee (Hannah literally looking down on Williams from the upper floor of a barn), the two embark upon a brief affair culminating in a backseat tryst in a car on a roadside lay-by (an incredibly beautiful shot of the rain falling and trucks speeding past). The coupling of Williams and Hannah is mirrored by shots of rodeo riders being thrown from superb-looking wild horses (picking themselves up looking bruised and aggrieved). Eventually the affair fizzles out, Hannah distances herself and treats Williams with indifference. Williams is left looking confused.

Everything about the film is perfect. I have seen it many times and always notice new details. Sometimes I watch it without sound – the effect is totally different.