The Virgen Suicides (Sofia Copola, 1999). Rafael J. Salin-Pascual MD
The beautiful girls that look very normal to everyone had a teenager disease, and some of them already kill themselves, without to be depressed. The question that hooks most of the people first, when reading the novel (By Jeffey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides, 1993), and later to watch the film with suspense is: How can it be possible that such a lovely girls kill themselves?
The cascade of hormones that circulate in their bodies can be hold for any longer, but cultural, moral, an religious all are plotting against that girls, and as always happens in any family, one member became the amplifier of all the members conflicts, and even without knowing what happens open one door to death an keep it open.
Sofia Coppola, as a young woman, was the right filmmaker to look into the feminine way in which ex-girls live their lives. Emotions, nostalgia, mixed with deep thoughts, those girls looks very matures, but at the same time naives, savants specially in the perceptions of other people feelings.
That is way Lux Lisbon (Kisten Dunst), was able to deal with Paul Baldino (Robert Schwartzman), the heartbreak boy in the high school. The reminiscence to other filmmakers as David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" and Peter Weirs's Picnic in the Hanging Rock (Australia, 1975), are very noticeable along several scenes (Watering gardens in a nice looking suburbs or the fragrance and innocence of the five Lisbone's girls).
Of course the other parts of this story are the boys of around, that became in love in a platonic way with the Lisbone girls, and at the same time, they became the only contact with the external world. This is a very touching part for the audience, because lunch a target into everybody memories of the girl next door that you never talk with her, and only for that she became an icon. Because these girls that were brutally kidnapped for their own mother. Mrs. Lisbon (Kathleen Turner), is the intolerant element, selfish, and with a black and white vision of the world, that remember me about one some them of Nostalgia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983), where Domenico the mad man of the Italian town also kept all his family secluded and the Mexican film of Arturo Ripstein "El Castillo de la pureza" (1973), story that by the way was true.
Mrs. Lisbone, she is the one who had that estrange reaction, when one of the girls (Lux) just arrive very late, the next day after a party. The mother seclude all the other girls at home, while Mr Lisbone (James Wood), extreme his state of dissociation, talking with plants and mumble. He is a guy that always has a great capability for denial, of course he can't face his wife, an there is a shocking scene in which the priest arrive ate his home after the first suicide and he is keeping watching the baseball and drinking a bear, without paying to much attention about the counseling that the priest is proposing.
Because the title of the film some element of intrigue and suspense are involved, as spectator, people are waiting that something very heavy was about to show up, but Sofia Coppola made a wise choice, this is not a horror film, is a movie about the inexplicable aspects of human soul, and specially about teenagers that have to confront with life almost bare hands, and with a body full of love.
rafasalin@yahoo.com
The beautiful girls that look very normal to everyone had a teenager disease, and some of them already kill themselves, without to be depressed. The question that hooks most of the people first, when reading the novel (By Jeffey Eugenides, The Virgin Suicides, 1993), and later to watch the film with suspense is: How can it be possible that such a lovely girls kill themselves?
The cascade of hormones that circulate in their bodies can be hold for any longer, but cultural, moral, an religious all are plotting against that girls, and as always happens in any family, one member became the amplifier of all the members conflicts, and even without knowing what happens open one door to death an keep it open.
Sofia Coppola, as a young woman, was the right filmmaker to look into the feminine way in which ex-girls live their lives. Emotions, nostalgia, mixed with deep thoughts, those girls looks very matures, but at the same time naives, savants specially in the perceptions of other people feelings.
That is way Lux Lisbon (Kisten Dunst), was able to deal with Paul Baldino (Robert Schwartzman), the heartbreak boy in the high school. The reminiscence to other filmmakers as David Lynch's "Blue Velvet" and Peter Weirs's Picnic in the Hanging Rock (Australia, 1975), are very noticeable along several scenes (Watering gardens in a nice looking suburbs or the fragrance and innocence of the five Lisbone's girls).
Of course the other parts of this story are the boys of around, that became in love in a platonic way with the Lisbone girls, and at the same time, they became the only contact with the external world. This is a very touching part for the audience, because lunch a target into everybody memories of the girl next door that you never talk with her, and only for that she became an icon. Because these girls that were brutally kidnapped for their own mother. Mrs. Lisbon (Kathleen Turner), is the intolerant element, selfish, and with a black and white vision of the world, that remember me about one some them of Nostalgia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983), where Domenico the mad man of the Italian town also kept all his family secluded and the Mexican film of Arturo Ripstein "El Castillo de la pureza" (1973), story that by the way was true.
Mrs. Lisbone, she is the one who had that estrange reaction, when one of the girls (Lux) just arrive very late, the next day after a party. The mother seclude all the other girls at home, while Mr Lisbone (James Wood), extreme his state of dissociation, talking with plants and mumble. He is a guy that always has a great capability for denial, of course he can't face his wife, an there is a shocking scene in which the priest arrive ate his home after the first suicide and he is keeping watching the baseball and drinking a bear, without paying to much attention about the counseling that the priest is proposing.
Because the title of the film some element of intrigue and suspense are involved, as spectator, people are waiting that something very heavy was about to show up, but Sofia Coppola made a wise choice, this is not a horror film, is a movie about the inexplicable aspects of human soul, and specially about teenagers that have to confront with life almost bare hands, and with a body full of love.
rafasalin@yahoo.com