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Rating: February 14, 1999. Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, two reclusive and unknown French counterfeiters, are fresh off the astonishing heist that has gone down in history as "Moon Safari" (1998). Satisfied with the proceeds of this theft, they live incognito in Paris. Their hideout is an anonymous apartment in the Marais, at whose door only an acronym appears: AIR (Amour, Imagination, Rêve).
On that cold Parisian morning, someone slid a white envelope under the door: for a "Hollywood-style" fee, a young American director commissions them to compose the soundtrack for the film "The Virgin Suicides," a story based on a real event in the USA in the early '70s. The task is challenging: to reproduce the characteristic sounds of the era in which the events took place.
The envelope remains a few days on the VCS3, which, upon entrance, serves more as an ashtray.
The low clouds have taken root over the Seine and it has been raining for days... perhaps they have already said it all, perhaps they only make elevator and airport music... they are in an evident creative and identity crisis. However, the contract is one that cannot be refused...
They then decide on a desperate move: to break into Abbey Road Studios in London and steal the archives.
After a lysergic night in Camden Town, they walk, still in darkness, along the banks of the Regent's Canal and soon arrive near the famous London studios.
Ignoring the security system, they attempt to access through the fire escape and, with methods well known to the Pigalle criminal underworld, they easily handle the panic door lock. However, the alarm system does its dirty work and goes off immediately. The two race towards the basement and enter a room marked by the sign "Archives 1970-1975": all that remains is to grab the first tapes within reach and make a run for it.
Returning tumultuously to Paris, they discover that the tapes in their possession are discarded recordings by Pink Floyd, dated January 1972: the unfinished sequel to Meddle, rejected and disowned before publication by Roger Waters.
The unexpected stroke of luck revitalizes them: there is nothing left to do but pick up the Precision bass, Fender guitar, Hammond organ, and dust off the VCS3.
They can finally begin a sublime work of musical assembly, aware of being refined plagiarists of an ethereal and timeless mood.
AIR - The Virgin Suicides - 2000
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
06 The Word 'Hurricane' (02:33)
The word 'Hurricane' is the name given to nature's strongest storm.
A hurricane occurs when high pressure and low pressure masses of air
come in contact with one another.
There is often a significant difference in temperature
between the two masses.
One mass is warm, while the other is cold.
The warmer air rises, and the cooler air falls.
Likewise, the low pressure area slides down the sides
of the high pressure area.
They swirl in and around one another, creating the beginnings of the storm.
13 Suicide Underground (05:53)
Everyone dated the demise of our neighborhood from the suicides of the Lisbon girls.
People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped-out elms and harsh sunlight.
Some thought the torture tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them:
So full of flaws.
But the only thing we are certain of after all these years is the insufficiency of explenation.
"Obviously doctor, you've never been a thirteen year-old girl."
The Lisbon girls were 13, Cecillia, 14, Lux, 15, Bonnie, 16, Mary, and 17, Therese.
No one could understand how Mrs. Lisbon and Mr. Lisbon, our math teacher, had produced such beautiful creatures.
From that time on, the Lisbon house began to change.
Almost every day, and even when she wasn't keeping an eye on Cecilia,
Lux would suntan on her towel wearing a swimsuit that caused the knife-sharpener to give her a 15-minute demonstration for free.
The only reliable boy who got to know Lux was Trip Fontaine
For only 18 months before the suicides had emerged from baby fat
To the delight of girls and mothers alike.
But few anticipated it would be so drastic.
The girls were pulled out of school, and Mrs. Lisbon shut the house for maximum security isolation.
The girls' only contact to the outside world was through the catalogs
They ordered that started to fill the Lisbon's mailbox with pictures of high-end fashions and brochures for exotic vacations.
Unable to go anywhere, the girls traveled in their imaginations:
To gold-tipped Siamese temples or past an old man, the leaf broom tidying the maw carpeted speck of Japan.
And Cecelia hadn't died. She was a bride in Calcutta.
Collecting everything we could of theirs, we couldn't get the Lisbon girls out of our minds, but they were slipping away.
The colours of their eyes were fading, along with exact locations of moles and dimples.
From five, they had become four, and they were all, the living and the dead, become shadows.
We would have lost them completely if the girls hadn't contacted us.
Lux was the last to go.
Fleeing from the house, we forgot to stop at the garage.
After the suicide free-for-all, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon gave up any attempt to lead a normal life.
They had Mr. Hedly pack up the house, selling what furniture he could at a garage sale.
Everyone went just to look.
Our parents did not buy used furniture, and they certainly didn't buy furniture tainted by death.
We of course took the family photos that were put out with the trash.
Mr. Lisbon put the house on the market, and it was sold to a young couple from Boston.
It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls.
But only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling; still do not hear us.
Calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time. alone in suicide,
Which is deeper than death,
And where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.
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