Casually standing in the gondola, the self-proclaimed "freedom seekers" from Salomon lean against the gondola wall to "shred epic powder" for another weekend in their lives. But no, it's not just another weekend, as the voiceover would have us believe. After all, a piece of world war history was written here in the Italian Dolomites near Cortina d'Ampezzo - accompanied by meaningful music. They came across it - oh my gosh - by mistake after getting out of the Peak gondola. You can already understand the thoughts of the TV marketing strategists while listening to the narrator's words:
That would be a really good story for the next episode, a bit of war, lots of skiing and of course the incredible landscape of the Dolomites. Let's call the next episode appropriately 'War Story'.
The Salomon TV clip
Instead of using the opportunity to actually reflect meaningfully and sensitively on the events on the senseless Alpine front of the First World War, the backdrop is used in a perfidious way to interweave old film snippets from the war with current sequences in order to generate tension, menace and an atmosphere of oppression. The inconceivable naivety with which the filmic cuts were realized shows either a complete ignorance of the tragedy of the First World War or - even worse - the complete and yet reflected marketing madness of today's media world. The tragedy here is that neither the skiing nor the hypocritical significance of the First World War comes into play; because the former can only appear ridiculous in comparison to the latter.
The crowning glory of the whole thing - and therefore the infinite bullshit, so to speak - is the end of the clip, in which, while birds disappear into the glistening light of the mountains, we are taught from off-screen:
"Skiing seems trivial when faced with realities of war, but perhaps it is the best way to honor these heroes..."
Yes, maybe that is the case, but maybe some people are making it far too easy for themselves here.