Teenage suicide was not unknown before the 1990s, but its increasing cases during this period led people to recognize the problem. Schools even began posting materials to educate students and parents about the phenomenon. the virgin suicides addresses this sensitive issue head-on. Sofia Coppola combines elements of her own style with those of classic film noir to show how these young people become so alienated in a world they barely know or understand. Through the eyes of five sheltered teenagers, Coppola opens up a dark universe of isolation.
From the beginning of the film, it is acknowledged that the five Lisbon girls died before reaching adulthood. A small group of boys, now men, from the Lisbon neighborhood have never forgotten the mysterious sisters whom they have never fully deciphered. One of the men narrates the film and informs the viewer that he and his friends still meet at all the high school reunions and birthday parties to discuss the fate of the Lisbon girls.
The film then flashes back to their childhood around 1975 and features the girls as they exit their family’s van. Cecilia is the youngest at 13, preceded by Lux, Bonnie, Mary, and Therese, who were all a year older than others. All the girls look so young, innocent and beautiful. However, it is soon revealed that Cecilia has just been released from the hospital after a suicide attempt.
Cecilia begins seeing a therapist who recommends that the strict in Lisbon allow their daughters to throw a party to cheer up the girls and allow them to interact with boys and girls their own age. Cecilia is upset by a group of her classmates who make fun of a boy with Down syndrome. She feels that he will never really belong in society, so she runs upstairs and jumps out the window. Her second suicide attempt is successful as she lands on a spiked wrought iron fence. The rest of the film deals with Lisbon’s struggle to cope with this new reality. In the end, the remaining sisters decide that Cecilia was right about the world being a desolate and lonely place where existence itself is useless, so they decide to join her by taking her own life.
Although the virgin suicides is not a classic film noir, it is undeniable that Coppola was influenced by the ideas it brings to mind. The mood of some scenes, for example, has parallels to film noir. After all, Coppola intends to take the audience into the bizarre and heavy world these doomed girls live in. Both the suicide scenes and the scene where Trip leaves Lux in the middle of the football field after having sex with her evoke a sense of unease and inconceivability that is definitely film noir. the virgin suicides it is also influenced by noir themes and style. The film is mostly about these teenage girls who feel cut off from the crowd, half-enclosed in the reality that was home. Everything in the Lisbon house is monotonous and grey. There is never any direct sunlight or high profile lighting inside the Lisbon house. It’s like the girls are covered in cobwebs like little porcelain dolls kept in a basement somewhere. Coppola uses light throughout the film to symbolize life and change, such as cuts to time-lapse shots outdoors with the sun shining in the background. This also shows that things outside are changing, but the girls of Lisbon are forced to remain stuck in their rooms.
the virgin suicides it also features a particularly avant-garde score for the time period it was supposed to represent. Track titles include “Cemetery Party”, “Dirty Trip” and “Bathroom Girl”. These are songs Mrs. Lisbon would definitely not allow her children to listen to. Coppola even highlights this by showing Lux burning all of her rock CDs at the hands of her mother. This represents the authority that the girls’ parents still have over their lives, but the score that still plays throughout the film represents their struggle to carve out a place for themselves. Maybe the girls had made it and were just being suffocated. Most likely, however, the girls saw no hope of living in a future that they saw as lonely, uncomfortable, and unfulfilling.
the virgin suicides Departures from noir and more modern film conventions are also noticeable. Lux Lisbon is not the classic film noir femme fatale. She knows her sex appeal and she knows she can use it to her advantage, but she’s not trying to cheat on the men she sleeps with. Lux is simply trying to justify what happened to Trip. She had sex with him after her homecoming dance because she thought he cared about her, and then he left her asleep on the football field. Lux, only fifteen years old, was really affected by this. She then reacts by trying to prove to herself that sex means nothing. She would then be fine if she lost her virginity to Trip for no good reason.
The story of the unlucky Lisboa sisters had to be told in a modern context, while the world they live in and the experiences they have are sometimes noir. So a true fusion of a few different styles and genres was required. Sofia Coppola does a wonderful job of blending the conventions of film noir with her own thematic flair in directing the virgin suicides. The film’s music and lighting are similar to film noir, as is the overall theme of the film and its setting where the days blend together and even the sex makes no sense. However, neither sister quite resembles a classic femme fatale. Also, kids can be like young detectives, but they don’t have ulterior motives. His respect and amazement for the Lisboa sisters is sincere, and that is something that cannot exist in a film noir.