UNITED STATES – NEW YORK
On September 27, 2000, the first feature film by a twenty-nine-year-old director with an already prestigious name was released in French cinemas: Virgin Suicides. The film, now a cult classic, opens in cinemas on July 12. The mystery of the Lisbon sisters has lost none of its aura.
We sometimes forget that Virgin Suicides takes place in the 1970s. We also forget that the film begins like a Stephen King novel, like Ça, or like Stand by Me: a group of young boys investigate the mysterious disappearance, the unexplained suicide, of five sisters from their high school. In Stephen King’s work, the investigation forces the teenagers to confront their most terrible fears, as a metaphor for the passage to adulthood. For the boys in Virgin Suicides, as for most fourteen-year-olds, nothing frightens or fascinates more than girls. “We learned that girls knew everything about us, while they remained elusive,” recounts one of them, in voice-over.
Almost flirting with the supernatural, Virgin Suicides evokes the mysteries of adolescence and the cracks of WASP America in its perfect suburbs, and has something of David Lynch about it. There’s a touch of Blue Velvet in the impeccably manicured lawns of the Lisbon family, slightly poorer than their very wealthy neighbours. The spleen of Kirsten Dunst’s character evokes that of Kyle MacLachlan in that 1986 film, who is also searching for meaning in his life. And her unexplained death just after being crowned Prom Queen recalls that of high school star Laura Palmer in the Twin Peaks series.
We forget that the girl who first commits suicide was interested in extinct species and dying trees, like the teenagers who want to collectively disappear in Sébastien Marnier’s L’Heure de la sortie. There was less talk of ecology in those days. We forget that clues are distilled, and that Virgin Suicides is also an investigative film, some scenes of which, with their on-camera interviews, would almost evoke a Netflix true-crime documentary.
Because, strangely enough, we also forget that Virgin Suicides is a tragedy. We remember the diaphanous young girls, the melancholy, pop atmosphere. We remember that, despite the sadness, a tone of comedy pervades the whole film. We remember that this is a very free adaptation of a short novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, best known for his second book, Middlesex. We also remember the beautiful soundtrack and Air’s hits, Highschool Lover and Playground Love, which, in their instrumental versions, accompany the film. A few notes are enough to create the unique atmosphere that makes Virgin Suicides one of those instant classics of cinema history.
Another film, released barely a year later, mirrors Sofia Coppola’s feature. Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko is another story of teenagers in another upscale American suburb. One is female, the other male. One is white and bright, the other black and nocturnal. One is about 1970s America, the other about 1980s America. Like Virgin Suicides, Donnie Darko has its own hit, an acoustic cover of Tears for Fears’ Mad World by Gary Jules. But Virgin Suicides has yet another echo, that of a 1975 Australian film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, which Sofia Coppola readily cites as an inspiration. There’s the same light, the same young blonde girls in white dresses, and death hovering in the air.
But the most important thing to remember is that, despite the references, Sofia Coppola was perhaps the first to take a feminine look at adolescence, where teen movies, which had been in their heyday since the John Hughes films of the 1980s, were essentially male – with the exception of Amy Heckerling’s terrific Clueless (1996). Finally, it’s worth noting that the freshness of his direction means that Virgin Suicides, twenty-three years on, hasn’t aged a day. Because, like him, the mystery of adolescence, which he manages to capture, remains eternal.
Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola
In cinemas July 12
PIERRE CHARPILLOZ