Few filmmakers do beautiful people, controlled chaos, and vaguely dangerous behavior quite like French director Romain Gavras, so hiring him to direct Dakota Johnson and Alexander Skarsgård in a perfume ad makes perfect sense. The “Athena” filmmaker is behind Valentino Beauty’s new campaign film for its revived Vendetta fragrances.
Shot on 35mm, the dialogue-free short follows Johnson and Skarsgård as two rebellious lovers tearing across sunlit highways and retreating into shadowy interiors. The Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s A Sin” accompanies their romantic escape, while longtime fashion photography duo Inez & Vinoodh shot the accompanying print campaign. Valentino creative director Alessandro Michele oversaw the campaign’s creative direction.
Johnson described the film as “a glimpse into a relationship that seems to be quite intense and fiery” in a July interview with Vogue. Although the actors have known each other for more than a decade, the campaign marks their first time working together.
“There isn’t any dialogue, but he was still so fun to work with,” Johnson said of Skarsgård. “Calm and down for anything.”
Skarsgård apparently needed that composure once Johnson got behind the wheel. “Dakota drives like a Formula One driver,” he joked. “There’s a scene in which we’re flying down a dirt road, and what you don’t see in that scene is that I’m basically peeing my very exquisite Valentino trousers because of her driving.”
The son of the famous, politically charged Greek-French filmmaker Costa-Gavras (“Z,” “State of Siege,” “The Confession”), Gavras, with his aggressive, highly choreographed visual style, made him one of the defining music video directors of his generation. His credits include M.I.A.’s “Born Free” and “Bad Girls,” Justice’s “Stress,” Jamie xx’s “Gosh,” and Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church In The Wild.” He subsequently brought that same volatile energy to “The World Is Yours” and the electrifying urban-warfare thriller “Athena.”
His English-language feature debut, “Sacrifice,” arrives on Netflix on October 16. The satirical thriller with a political bent, naturally, stars Chris Evans as an insecure movie star who is taken hostage during an environmental gala by a radical group led by Anya Taylor-Joy. Salma Hayek Pinault, Vincent Cassel, John Malkovich, Ambika Mod, Sam Richardson, Charli XCX, and Yung Lean co-star.
Watch Gavras’ Valentino Vendetta campaign film below.
