A man, an eagle, a rabbit. Sounds like the beginning of an old joke or the start of a cover blurb for a new age version of a Jonathan Livingston Seagull book.

But it’s something much loftier than that. It’s the elements of a wonderful spot for Varilux Comfort lenses by Essilor.

‘Eagle,’ created in France and given an English-language version for use here, is a lush yet minimalist spot that seems to reduce life to its essence. Man watches bird. Bird watches rabbit. The rabbit hops with an urgency in its gait that betrays a sneaking suspicion that all is not right.

Both the man and the creatures need to be able to focus at different distances instantly. Nature has taken care of the creatures, but luckily the man has his Varilux Comfort lenses.

The bird may have life and death designs on the hare, but the man simply has design on his mind. He’s drawing the noble avian lord and registering all the particulars of the page, the bird, the rabbit and the landscape thanks to ‘Varilux Comfort, the progressive lenses with the instant focus system.’

The v/o continues: ‘Now presbyopes can see clearly at all distances without any delay.’ Presbyopes? Apparently (according to my dictionary) presbyopia is ‘a visual condition which becomes apparent especially in middle age and in which loss of elasticity of the lense of the eye causes defective accommodation and inability to focus sharply for near vision.’ In other words, middle-aged eyes.

So, so far we’ve reduced life to its essence and learned a new word. And I still haven’t gotten to the good part: the images.

We begin with a black screen and flashes of color, enough to make anyone sympathize with the focus-impaired.

The images that follow are paradoxical. They use lushness to create a barren, desert-like landscape. We focus on the eagle, the rabbit, the sweep of land, the drawing on the page, but always, we return to the eye. Tight shots of the bird’s face. Tight shots of the man’s face. Extreme close-ups of his eye. Then we actually enter his eye. The best shot has the eagle superimposed on the man’s pupil, summing the spot up in one cogent image.

When finally the camera swoops in towards the man, right into his eye, the image becomes the Varilux Comfort logo topped by a tight shot of the eagle’s eyes looking directly into the camera. At you.

It’s not a spot you forget in a hurry.

Roll credits:

Production house: Premiere Heure (France)

Director: Sebastien Chantrel

Chief camera: Patrick Duroux

Director of Production: Christian Hubert

Music: Raphael Elig, Ariel Wizman

Agency: Saatchi & Saatchi, Paris

Creative director: Gilles Soulier

Art director: Laurent Picard

Copywriter: Alain Saulnier

Producer: Monique Laigle

Canadian adaptation: Sensas (Montreal)

Post house: Le Groupe Post-M (Montreal)