Deep Red Instant Love

Budding romance and political subversion create a headache for the manager of Superstore in Rik Lander’s colourful satire on capitalism.

Come one, come all, and worship at the altar of Everett Lord, high priest of consumerism. It’s a siren call for product-obsessed Frank (David Thewlis), thrilled to bag a shelf-stacking job at Superstore - until he meets the subversive Anna, who sets him on a collision course with his new boss. Lander’s ribald treatment of shopping mall culture, with its pop-promo texturing and ironic tone, anticipates the aesthetic qualities that would dominate early-90s short filmmaking in the UK.

Rik Lander was one half of 1980s scratch video duo the Duvet Brothers, best known for their work Blue Monday (1984), a pointedly political assembly of found footage set to New Order’s groundbreaking electronic hit.