Just like the unforgettable and scary "AIDS: Monolith" public announcement ad, director Nicolas Roeg uses of a more deeper and methaporical imagery to alarm audiences about the dangers of AIDS - one more time John Hurt's haunting voice behind the PSA. The short compares AIDS and an iceberg, and one may wonder where's the connection. Thought it's only the iceberg who's on screen, the idea formed is to tell about how anyone can carry a deadly disease and
not show it because a) they don't know they have it or b) they know they have it but keep on going with careless unprotected sex activities; and those can mean one thing: that you cannot tell things or a person's health just by what you can see just like an iceberg where you can only visualize the part above
the ocean but what's beneath you'll never know the whole dimmension. Just like Hurt quotes, "it's only the tip of the iceberg" and then the camera moves below
the ocean. By that, it's reflecting the AIDS casualties and the more it could grow.
"Iceberg" is more open to explore the dangers of AIDS in a more subtle message and imagery, it goes deep in warning people about how to protect yourself from the
virus; unlike "Monolith" which was more frightening because it kept telling us that death is on the way and there was no chance of escaping. Still isn't though time has
changed things - yet the numbers keep on growing. I guess the problem with this current generation is the lack of advertisements like these. I was born at the time
when hearing about having the virus was a death sentence, and lived my early years hearing it on the news on how terribly devastating it was. But lived long
enough to see science progress, new medicines on that which made HIV manageable and even one cure case (that was an experiment revolving an HIV positive patient who also had leukemia and got a bone marrow transplant - the cure wasn't all that planned, it just happened). And I lived long enough to see some miracle cases of people who acquired the syndrome back in those darkest years yet they're still alive.
So, it's only when one gets exposed and wants
to find out if they got it or not that the issue comes to surface. But I guess history repeats itself but in worse ways. Those ads might have helped a lot of people
back then because they were important, relevant, chilling to the bone and never shying away from the reality of catching a deadly disease just because of nights of pleasure.
Today, we have ads but...they're not on TV anymore (in my country's case they only show them during Carnival season - meaning that social/health systems think
people only have sex during that part of the year); those ads are in places where you're getting tested for a negative or a positive. Too late, isn't it? Works
as a reflection when you're negative for the virus and to think about your next choices, alarming the anxiety you've been put through when you were about to receive the test
results. "Monolith" and "Iceberg" are great yet sad reminders of a dark period, filled with discrimination on people from the then groups of risk and
AIDS victims. Those UK's adverts are simply the greatest I've ever seen. Valid then and still valid now..."Don't Die of Ignorance". 9/10.
