Heaven on earth is a pizza farm party.
There’s an old Volkswagen ad that is so good, it could be a short film. Three young folks in their early twenties or so are driving in a Volkswagen convertible at night with the top down. The ad opens with a view of the car crossing over a silvery moonlit river on a country bridge. Two white cones of light make their way across the empty bridge as the camera zooms by overhead.
In the shot, there’s no other people, and no signs of human development other than the car and bridge. We get a wide overhead view of the river, and though it’s dark, we immediately get the impression that we’re far from town, or wherever this car has come from. The banks appear to be covered in grass. No other roads, buildings, people or even trees are visible. It’s an enveloping, fairytale-like exposition.
As the ad progresses, we see closeups of the young folks. They drive underneath a tunnel of sparsely budded oaks, or some similar kind of tree. They put their hands up as they drive under a cloud of fireflies. After thirty seconds of runtime, we haven’t seen any people, or signs of human development other than the car, its three occupants and the road.
Then we see a modest California bungalow. The lights are on, including colored string lights in the front yard. A handful of other cars are parked along the edge of the road. We hear the lively chatter of an evening kickback. The way this journey through the countryside was shot, framed, and portrayed is what has made this commercial so memorable for so many people, including myself. It’s worth investigating why.
Let’s start with what this commercial didn’t show. It didn’t show our young protagonists driving down a crowded city street. It didn’t show them meeting their friends at a public place like a bar or restaurant. Instead, it showed them far from the city, town or settlement. It showed a long, quiet journey through the countryside. And their destination was a private house party: somewhere lively, but somewhere they would know and be known.
I find myself making exactly this kind of journey often, as a kind of pilgrimage. I drive out into the countryside with my family, to somewhere simple, human and intimate. Perhaps we go to an apple orchard, or a small winery on a country road, or a village park on the Mississippi River. Or I drive with my wife far out of the city to a village restaurant for an anniversary date. The richest example of this experience was when I met my whole extended family at a pizza farm, tucked into the end of a hollow in the hills of Western Wisconsin.
I can’t say exactly what about these journeys and destinations is so alluring. I’m certainly stretching interpretation and speculation to the breaking point, but I can’t help wondering if it’s a sort of metaphor for our journey to heaven. One eschews the noisy worldly attractions of the city for something simpler and more intimate. There is a journey involved, and a destination where one is known.
Heaven on earth may just be a pizza farm party.