“Woah,” was all I managed to blurt out as the end credits rolled. But not because the ending was overwhelmingly satisfying, but quite the opposite — the ending was so incredibly confusing. And that is precisely why you need to watch this movie.
The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola probes into five sisters — the Lisbon girls — who wind up killing themselves. But the beauty of this film is that it is narrated by a group of (hormonal) teenage boys. By peeking into diaries, photographs, and interviews of onlookers and love interests, the boys struggle to answer the question we’ve all been asking: Why did the Lisbon girls kill themselves? And, apologies to those who have not watched it yet, but, this question will never be answered.
You might ask, why should I even bother to watch this film if the biggest “Why?” is left a cliffhanger? However, this is where the mastery of Sofia Coppola reveals itself. As I interpreted it, the post-credits bewilderment is the mirror reflection of the confusion that the teenage boys felt after the girls’ deaths. Not only that, but in true Sofia-Coppola-fashion, this ambiguity acts as a message on how misunderstood the teenage girl psyche is, and how the boys’ inability to distinguish between connection and sexualization reveals the painful reality of living under the male gaze.
With a stellar soundtrack, amazing casting, and mystifying color-grading, Coppola effectively invites viewers into the movie itself, creating ripples in the themes of love, adolescence, and girlhood.
So, if you want to undergo a transformative, immersive experience, The Virgin Suicides is for you. But be warned — you will become utterly obsessed. For now, it may be worth pondering upon this line: “We knew the girls were really women in disguise, that they understood love, and even death, and that our job was merely to create the noise that seemed to fascinate them.”
“Kirsten Dunst smoking 5” by Nicholas R. Andrew is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.