Well, did you (UK-based subscribers only), catch the television commercial for the new Ambra personal computers in the middle of Independent Television New’s News at Ten last night? We sent our film and video critic along to report:Just what is Individual Computer Products International Ltd and its Ambra line of PC clones? Let’s go to the videotapes. The first images shown to the outside world by the new IBM Europe subsidiary are as follows: A pretty, muscular, blond man puts on trainers and goes running off the the horizon in slow motion. Close-ups along the way show he does not sweat. Ambra logo follows. End of video. Second image: Bug-eye view through camera that travels over the lines of the case of the Ambra video screen and main cabinet. It is a very plain shape. Clean. Mechanical. White. Colder than Bauhaus. Third image: Handsome (not quite), muscular, dark-haired man works out in gym, pumping iron, finishes workout and walks through gymnasium. Man passes woman on exercise machine. Woman is thin, athletic, wearing halter top that reveals no bra lines and, remarkably, no nipples either. Pleasant to look at, determined expression suggests no sexual interest in passing male protagonist or possibly chronic constipation. Man saunters on, flexing muscles, heads for locker room. There he manages to bang his head on low pipe. Camera reveals warning sign on pipe (see Max Headroom). Cut to old towel handler who, hearing clunk of man’s skull on pipe, looks at camera knowingly and shows glimmer of amusement. Cut to Ambra logo. End of videos, shown interspersed with sales patter to press at Ambra product debut. All three images evoke German political advertising from the dastardly late 1930s. These images may play to a market suffering from the same feelings that obviously beset IBM’s ICPI glue factory and its advertising agency henchmen: hostility, frustration, thwarted ego and erotic impulses and the corporate equivalent of homophobia and sexual confusion. Our conclusion: the Ambra line may sell well despite the advertising. But for their own well-being, the executives in charge of the company and its images should sneak out and relieve their frustrations behind the bike sheds before proceeding with business. – Hesh Wiener