flicks
Sunday, May 09, 2004
The Virgin Suicides, 1999
plot:
point of view of the 4 or so boys across the street. their love, obsession with the girls. reflection of what happened in michigan 25 years ago. cecilia tried to commit suicide by wrist slashing. danny devito as the ineffectual psychiatrist. parents try to introduce more boys into their lives as doctor's orders. she just seemed ignored, or people were pleasant enough but nothing was happening. she seemed really religious in her room. then she went to her room. next moment she jumped out the window - accident? was the fence not supposed to be there and she was imitating the italian boy she saw doing the same, and walking out fr the bushes on his merry way? dunno. then hoopla about teenage suicides increasing. trip, and his seeking lux. him devising for them all to go to the prom. he ditches her. she gets back late. mother bears down and house arrests them. they go bonkers. signal to neighborhood boys, messages for help. last night, they said to come over at midnight. lux lets them in. they bump into one of the girls hanging. and run away. she does herself in in the garage w/ CO. parents move away. boys grow up, and do the normal things that people do. their parents did the normal things that people do. but there's still a hole there. ? why the girls didn't ask for help until it was too late.
lux = Kirsten Dunst. supposed to be 14?! she's cute, has a good bod; really tiny teeth. much more 'together' in appearances than her sisters. i don't know if she was supposed to be separated fr her sisters, but the camera seemed to pan to her most of the time. one of the sisters, terese, was played by an actress that was a childhood friend of sophia. hottest girl in school, dated boys who were vacant, couldn't talk. slept with a lot of guys (on the roof), but couldn't be sullied. was not saved by trip. the last to kill herself, meaning the only one to know that all her sisters had done themselves in.
trip = the hunk of the school. gay father? the old trip was made to seem like part of a drug rehab residential program or something. really loved her. but why did he leave her in the football field? just wasn't the same when he woke up in the middle of the morning? i didn't get that. trip himself was the effeminate guy that's going nowadays
Kathleen Turner and James Woods-parents. she was scary at times - burning lux's records, taking them out of school for the weeks prior. how can that at all be normal or healthy? wish the movie had emphasized how criminal that is. that is child abuse. and the father was talking to the plants, clueless; and powerless unfortunately. he seemed more human. kathleen turner wasn't bad at acting, but the reality of her character was lacking.
the other sisters:
cecelia - 13yo who was the first to go, terese, mary,
1994 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides
director: sofia coppola
her debut as a director. she read the novel, thought it was one of the most important contemporary novels, and read it as if it was a movie. wrote the screenplay before having the rights to the book. approached her dad?, and he thought she should direct it. a lot of nepotism, or family group effort. dad was on the set for a few days, brother did some of the stage stuff, ma did the documentary part, nephew played one of the neighborhood friends, terese the childhood friend. but she worked well with the actresses - capturing their vitality, girlishness. she reminded me of annie - thin, overworked/dedicated.
music:
"Playground Love" (RealAudio excerpt) features friend Gordon Tracks whispering his melancholy lyrics over a somber orchestral pop track.
The full track listing for the soundtrack- Heart, "Magic Man"; Todd Rundgren, "Hello It's Me"; Sloan, "Everything You've Done Wrong"; Air, "Ce Matin La"; the Hollies, "The Air That I Breathe"; Al Green, "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"; Gilbert O'Sullivan, "Alone Again (Naturally)"; 10cc, "I'm Not in Love"; Todd Rundgren, "A Dream Goes On Forever"; Heart, "Crazy on You"; Air, "Playground Love (Main Theme)"; and Styx, "Come Sail Away."
AIR = french duo
multi-instrumentalist Nicolas Godin and Jean Benoit Dunckel; touring Air percussionist Brian Reitzell (ex–Redd Kross)
atmospheric pop
other works: Moon Safari, critically acclaimed 1998 electronic-pop album. usu Moog-driven dance pop
comment:
writing this 2 weeks later. a lot of the presence of the film has evaporated.
but the idea of girls as magical beings, not meant for this world. and the probability for 6 beautiful perfect girls to have existed simultaneously fr such a blah couple, was too much for the real world to bear.
suicide. teenage suicide being an issue. that one can't make sense out of it [harper's article about that; high school teacher that is thinking about writing about the boy in his class that did commit suicide. the people want to create stories out of the chaos of life that's the reality].
eerie, the music contributed to that.
okie. it's a friday, and i'm not doing another movie. spent some time on the computer, putzing around. need to study! but my brain is off to lunch... or a midnight snack.
