In the chic Detroit of the 1970s, five teenage sisters from a puritan family end up committing the irreparable. Twenty-five years after its release, Sofia Coppola’s first film has lost none of its evocative charm or its power of fascination. A poignant and captivating feminist plea. Friday September 27 at 9:05 p.m. on France 5.
The cozy American suburbs of the 1970s, the ethereal music of the group Air, the impatience of first loves filmed with the lightness of innocent champagne bubbles, strings of pendants, vinyls, bracelets, lipsticks or handwritten notes which dot the the screen like so many enigmas to decipher and, last but not least, the diaphanous faces of Leslie Hayman, Chelse Swain, AJ Cook, Hanna R. Hall and Kirsten Dunst, captured in the sweet light of a late afternoon as in the twilight of an already unbreathable life: twenty-five years after its release, Virgin Suicides has lost none of its evocative charm or its power of fascination.
How did the events come together? Our collection of memorabilia from the Lisbon sisters began with Cecilia’s diary. So we began to learn about their lives. We understood the imprisonment of being a girl.
The narrator of “Virgin Suicides”
Inspired by the eponymous novel by Jeffrey Eugenides published in 1993, Sofia Coppola’s first film reveals the daily life, all the lighter as it sometimes turns out to be downright suffocating, of five teenage sisters from the chic neighborhoods of Detroit in the 1970s. Raised in a strict Catholic family, they come – out of idleness, isolation, weariness, unease, despair, solidarity? – to commit suicide. Told through the memories of their young neighbors, the film appears shrouded in a sort of poisonous vagueness, which is as much the mark of time that has passed as it is the characteristic of a male gaze fantasizing the lives of the five adolescent girls.
From her first film, Sofia Coppola manages to blow the heat (of memory, of childhood, of carelessness, of sensuality) and the cold (of the fatal gesture, of melancholy and of oppression). Aged then 28, the director became, in one film, the great filmmaker of male influence: “ We understoodsays the narrator in the introduction,the imprisonment of being a girl. ” Of Marie Antoinette, his second film, Priscillathe latest, Sofia Coppola has never stopped filming the alienation of women, between resignation and rebellion, establishing herself over the course of a faultless filmography peppered with numerous successes (Lost in Translation, The Prey), as the reference for a cinema that is less feminist than purely, stubbornly, simply feminine – a cinema that dares to question relationships of domination and, years before #MeToo, rightly deconstruct the famous Hollywood “male gaze”. Be careful, masterpiece.
Virgin Suicides
In a quiet, puritanical American town in the 1970s, 13-year-old Cecilia Lisbon attempts suicide. She has four sisters, pretty teenagers. This incident sheds new light on the way of life of the entire family. The story, told through the vision of neighborhood boys, obsessed with these mysterious sisters, cynically depicts adolescent life. Little by little, the family closes in and the girls are quickly banned from going out. As the situation gets worse, the boys plan to rescue the girls.
Film (97 min – 1999) – Directing Sofia Coppola – Scenario Sofia Coppolabased on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides – Production American Zoetrope
With Leslie Hayman, Hanna R. Hall, Chelsea Swain, AJ Cook, Kirsten Dunst…
Not recommended -10 years
Virgin Suicidesbroadcast Friday September 27 at 9:05 p.m. on France 5 and can be (re)watched for seven days on france.tv
Published on September 26, 2024
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