The several montages of the girls just lying around and dreamily taking in their equally gorgeous surroundings are the boys' fantasies of them. She challenges herself to walk on the tricky tightrope between style and substance not only in her film's cinematography but its characters. It's a testament to Coppola's brilliance. On the first watch, I found myself getting ever so slightly distracted by the style-and that isn't an issue in it, but I looked past what lay so obvious below. Its beauty and prettiness are so easily commendable that we forget that this is a very, very important piece of cinema. Its painterly stylistic tendencies are only mere mimicry of the male perspectives of these girls. Will they drool over the film simply due to its stunningly sunny aesthetic and alluring montage or try and understand its deeper and more relevant ideas underneath.
The movie's cinematography is undeniably beautiful, but it's also Sofia Coppola's subtle and purposeful test for viewers. They fell in love with the idea of them-their entrancing eyes and gorgeous hair and not who they were as people, and that's a tragedy that's still so unfortunately prevalent in society's views of women and girls. But what they don't comprehend is that their "love" for these girls wasn't love-but mere obsession and infatuation. They were so beautiful and perfect, after all. Even in the "present day" scenes, it's the men attempting to solve the mystery of their suicides. The boys living in the neighborhood are who we see most of whether it's expressing their fantasies about the girls or watching them from a distance. Instead of giving them the chance to narrate and convey their tribulations, audiences only see one side of the story-the male side. The girls' entire lives and struggles are ripped from themselves. It's already impressive that Coppola made such an insightful take on the theme in 1999 considering the term was only popularized recently. Defining the term-it refers to the largely heteronormative male perspective of women in particular, and their general tendency to objectify and sexualize them. It's impossible to analyze The Virgin Suicides without addressing its narrators-and how the male gaze as an entirety alters our perspectives on the girls. The Virgin Suicides is a beautiful story about five sisters, and their mysterious existence told in the words of the neighborhood boys who worshiped them and who come together 20 years later to try and solve the mystery of the Lisbon sisters. Coppola asks viewers to look beneath the surface beneath the shallow perspectives of the main male characters, and hopefully gain empathy for the female ones in this odyssey into their psyches.
The film is impenetrable and cold at once, warm and inviting at another, but never entirely giving away its intentions.
SEA OF SOLITUDE DEEP DIVE FULL
These girls are objects and toys without agency and it's Coppola's searing cautionary tale full of emotional repression and angst that brings their story to life. A coming of age story written from a female perspective about the dynamics of the male gaze and the struggles of being a teenage girl-its cinematography only matches the attitudes towards the film's titular characters on a purely aesthetic level-mystical and fantastical without ever truly getting to know their humanity. Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides kickstarted the director's career in 1999, fueled by a singular vision and talented performers.
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