I will hand it to "Beach Road". Airing in 1990, this was one of TAC's earliest television campaigns (following the same faux documentary style as "Girlfriend" before it), but I'm not sure if they've produced another since that's quite this distressingly painful to sit through. It wouldn't be overstating to call it 60 seconds of pure protracted anguish, leading to a point of total despair. If "Girlfriend" set out to Upset, Outrage and Appal, then "Beach Road" really took it to the next level, with the mission to Depress, Sicken and Overwhelm. Like "Girlfriend" it gives us a gritty, fly on the wall perspective of the aftermath of an accident, as paramedics endeavour to revive an unresponsive child knocked down by a vehicle on what I presume to be the titular road in Melbourne. There's an outpouring of emotion from all sides, the messiness of the situation neatly encapsulated by the rapid intercutting between the various parties - the victim's mother, the driver, a woman assumed to be the partner of the driver - while the authorities attempt to get a handle on how this happened (spoiler: the driver was doing 90 km/h in a 60 zone). The narrative set-up and trajectory is a little similar to the Drinking & Driving Wrecks Lives piece "Eyes", but with a rawer presentation that immerses us more aggressively in the midst of the turmoil.
As with "Girlfriend", we're guided through this grim scenario by a medical professional who is clearly no stranger to the devastation reckless driving can cause. Identified on screen as Paul Thresher, Ambulance Officer MICA, he acts as our narrator and emotional grounding, speaking with an authority that injects reason into the disarray. He clearly explains how the calamity is the logical outcome of going too fast, hitting harder and causing more damage. It's an element that later TAC installments would ditch altogether, as seen in the subsequent anti-speed piece "Tracy"; before long, we'd be on our own, without so firm and dependable a voice to help us navigate the unrelenting trauma, as TAC sought out a more immersive experience still. "Girlfriend", "Beach Road" and "Tracy" all take place in the aftermath of an accident, and were designed to give us front-row seats of the unbearable emotional fall-out that accompanies such a dire turn of events. Though we approach each situation from the perspective of an onlooker who's stumbled onto the scene after the fact, the intimacy of the shots gives us the sensation of being right there in the firing line with those directly impacted - we feel at once the urgency of the first responders, the desperation of the perpetrators, the despair of the victims' loved ones (often the perpetrators and loved ones were one and the same, although not in the case of "Beach Road"). While the emotional fall-out remained an integral component of the TAC formula going forward, later ads would shift attentions to the spectacle of the crash itself, giving us some impression of what it was like to be inside the doomed vehicle and to witness the moment that things flipped from banal to baleful. Consistently, the strategy was to capture the shocking point at which reality bit and the full magnitude of what had occurred was left to sink in. For as unrefined as the formula is in "Beach Road", it's here that you can really feel those fangs beginning to sharpen, with it going to the kind of harrowing territory that "Girlfriend" merely hinted at. Whereas "Girlfriend" (and, arguably, "Tracy") leave us with some ambiguity as to the final condition of the injured party, "Beach Road" offers no sliver of hope, and no prospect of redemption. The child is declared dead, and we end with a full-on descent into the weeping and gnashing of teeth of the mother and driver alike. One is in hysterical denial, the other more silently broken.
What "Beach Road" emphasises, more bitterly than "Girlfriend" before it, is the irrecoverableness of the matter, the precise moment its inhabitants cross over into the point of no return. The driver's attempts to deflect responsibility by insisting that the traffic around him was doing 80 km/h are juxtaposed with the paramedics' efforts to revive the boy; both prove equally futile. The tragedy of such a young life being cut so mercilessly short is matched only by the realisation that, for the mother and driver, the gruelling road is only just beginning. Compared to the ridiculous boyfriend figure in "Girlfriend", the driver here is treated as a worthier subject of empathy, with a more hauntingly subdued treatment given to his final display of remorse (though his kitschy fashion sense is admittedly a curious touch). The intercutting of his silent breakdown with the devastated outbursts of the mother is an affecting contrast, showing them as sufferers in a mutual yet wildly disparate despair. Each is left in a position of intense loneliness. The mother has had her kin cruelly taken from her. I believe the woman who challenges the driver about doing 90 to be his partner, since she's as overdressed as him and can be glimpsed standing beside him in other shots, yet she is notably absent in that final shot, offering him nothing in the way of solidarity or comfort. Paul's damning condemnation that he has to live with the guilt for the rest of his life is alone his cross to bear, even if he's not the only one having to live with the repercussions.
As the ad nears its end, Paul delivers the tagline, "Don't fool yourself, speed kills", words not half as iconic as the "bloody idiot" tagline of "Girlfriend", but as blunt and effective as they need to be, implicating the viewer as complicit in the accident for their own reluctance to acknowledge the potentially serious consequences of the action. The last, most unsettling word, however, goes to the bereaved mother, screaming "Give me back my boy!" as we fade to black. Her demand is naturally beyond anybody's power to fulfil, but the rawness and the passion of her grief cannot be denied her, forming the bottom line on the entire matter. She screams this not to the driver or to the paramedics, but simply into the void, as she's drowned along with the driver in that final sorrowful engulfment. The time when anybody could have made a difference to how the scenario turned out has passed and will not return. All that's left now is the stifling embrace of eternity.
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