Sofia Coppola
Il giardino delle vergini suicide

I would start with a premise that is not the most promising but must be stated: the reason I decided to watch this film was solely because I adore the album 'The Virgin Suicides' by Air, released in 2000 and billed as the soundtrack to the eponymous film by Sofia Coppola. I say "billed," because after watching the film, I can say that a significant amount of the soundtrack is not composed of music from that album but from entirely different and far lesser substance; and as if that weren't enough, very few of the songs written by Air were used, and even those were the most divergent from the main theme that would have added variety to the musical realm of the film. And it is perhaps also for this reason that watching this film left me quite perplexed, especially at first, and I needed an immediate listen to the album in question to recover.

In any case, I would not have watched a film solely for the soundtrack if I had not surmised from my research that it was at least a decent film, with all the masterpieces out there waiting to be discovered, present in quantities indirectly proportional to the time I have available to enjoy them, unfortunately. Indeed, the premise of some young sisters discovering «love, sex, and death» may bode well at first glance, and interesting images of what could be a striking film had already formed in my mind. Still, far from expecting a masterpiece, I found myself with a rather banal, predictable, superficial film that could at best aspire to a prime-time broadcast on some public network.

The film starts right away with a thirteen-year-old's suicide attempt: two minutes in and a psychologist gives us information that, along with a statement made a few minutes later by the narrator, already makes it clear how the film will end. And I mention it because you would discover it by the fifth minute of the film or so: all five sisters (including the thirteen-year-old from the opening scene) will commit mass suicide at the end of the film due to parents I would not simply describe as "unpermissive," but absolutely Third Reich-like, who go as far as to lock their daughters in the house and (forgive me if it's of any import, but the scene in question, also riddled with ridiculous gags, hurt my heart terribly) burn their rock records. Notably, except for one of the five sisters who has somewhat of a leading role, there is no trace of character development, and they are mere set decor, sometimes even annoying to the nerves. The narrators are also smoke; they vanish into oblivion just as they appeared, worshippers of the girls who tell their story by maniacally collecting every belonging. But they are merely narrators, nothing more, and even when they appear young in the film and interact with the girls, they do not have a more substantial personality than a piece of paper. The context of this tragic but not particularly interesting story is absolutely laughable and predictable: the girls are involved in casual love and last-minute relationships, pushing their parents' charitable possibilities to the limit and ending up going overboard. Moreover, the director didn’t even have the courage to be explicit in handling the spicy or sometimes macabre twists of the story, as if it were a children's film, who, based on the title, would sense to stay away.

The semi-dreamlike atmosphere created by the relationship between narrators and narration is, in some cases, good, but absolutely unforgivable are some editing and directing choices that are definitely questionable, as well as some utterly out-of-place ideas (like the scene where a message on one of the girl’s underwear is shown as if in "x-ray").

From time to time, the only meta-reflections that arise concern mass media information pollution, institutional hypocrisy, educational values, young people’s situations… all topics that could be among the first handful of ideas any average mind might come up with, treated with excessive superficiality. The rest consists of stereotypes, dubious thematic digressions, and some failed pseudo-comic ideas. The whole is filled with abrupt time cuts that are completely anti-climactic, breaking the cinematic flow as if there was little time available. Which is absurd, since the film is just over an hour and a half long and it’s no wonder: it is evident that the director had little to say, and anyway the basic plot, although treated at a decidedly unhurried pace, does not contain any remarkable developments, so even by stuffing it with useless scenes, the duration does not suffer much. But that doesn’t have to be a problem, quite the opposite. In fact, in this film, it is perhaps the greatest merit, since I couldn’t wait for it to end to use the limited time available in favor of another, more deserving, film.

This, only after listening to 'The Virgin Suicides', anyway!