The Virgin Suicides is a 1999 film directed by Sofia Coppola. This film follows a group of high school boys who have a bit of an obsession with the Lisbon girls, 5 sisters, ages 13 through 17, who never leave each other's sides, and have an intriguing and TRANSCENDENTAL presence. The story begins when the youngest sister, Cecilia, attempts suicide by cutting her wrists. She's unsuccessful, but not long after this first attempt she jumps off the roof of the Lisbon home, and is IMPALED on their iron fence that guards their fortress. CECILIA'S suicide starts a snowball effect on the other sisters, and these 5 boys do their best to make sense of what unfolds before them. Anyone who's taken a psychology class understands how quickly Depression spreads. It can spread one person at a time, or multiple people, which is seen in The Virgin Suicides. This cycle of depression starts with Cecilia, and after her death, is diffused into the 4 remaining sisters, as well as their parents. Mr. And Mrs. Lisbon seem to have "normal" depressive behaviors, Ron Lisbon starts drinking, and has odd behavior at work, such as talking to the window plants in the staircase, and Mrs. Lisbon isolates herself in their home. On the other hand, Lux, Mary, Therese, and Bonnie seem to act like they did before. In Britt Hayes article for birthmoviesdeath.com, she writes, "Depression is a contagion, and it begins with Cecilia ... the virus of her depression becoming airborne and infecting everyone who inhales it." Hayes perfectly describes what happens in the Lisbon family, and we even see this in the group of boys that are involved with the story of the Lisbon girls, and also the people in their neighborhood, who we see gossiping, sharing their condolences or rumors. We don't really know if the Lisbon's neighbors had much to say about them before CECiLIA'S suicide, and when the girls are removed from school and kept at home, but it's clear that these events AFFECTED them in some way as well. Hayes also explains the effect of the girls being trapped in their own home, first figuratively, then later, literally. Hayes says, "We look into their home and wonder what could possibly make them want to escape so badly that they need to die: they have good parents in a normal home where they are well-fed and cared for, but suicide makes the least amount of sense to everyone else but the person who is suffering." The audience first gets the idea of estrangement in the form of being a teenage girl when Cecilia is meeting with the doctor and he asks "what are you doing here honey? You're not even old enough to know how bad life gets" to which Cecilia replies "Obviously, Doctor, you've never been a 13 year old girl." Even though she mentions being a 13 year old, I think this moment was a bit of foreshadowing for the dramas the other Lisbon girls face throughout the film - having to swallow any form of expression they have, such as lux having to burn her CDs, experimenting with boys, like at their party and when Peter and Trip came over to their house, and lastly, the homecoming dance. These things are all understandably stressful and/or confusing to these teenage girls, because they appear to have been kept on a very short leash and sheltered for a long time. Hayes says the girls have good parents in a normal home, but do they? I think Mr. And Mrs. Lisbon tried far too hard to be good parents, and because of this, the girls thought and acted in the way they did, and drove them to make the decision to kill themselves. the Dissolve's article titled "The Virgin Suicides is a window to Sofia Coppola's fixations", written by Genevieve KOski, helps me conclude my thoughts on the girl's isolation. through her writing, Koski illustrates a picture of the girls kept up in their house. Koski verifies my views by saying "the Lisbon girls’ already-strict parents become even stricter, they all but imprison their daughters in their own home, leading the girls to conceive and carry out a suicide pact." Near the start of the film when Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon are meeting with Cecilia's doctor, he suggests they allow Cecilia to have a social outlet outside of school so she could interact with boys her age, to which the Lisbon's are leery and don't seem convinced. Although they allow the girls to have this HELICOPTER parent supervised party, it clearly doesn't do much for Cecilia, and I don't think it did much for the other 4 sisters either. I think that if the girls had more opportunities to be out of their house, whether it be in an in-school activity, or getting to see the boys who are telling this story and try to help the girls out in the end, they wouldn't have been SUCCUMBED into the overwhelming depression that filled their home, and eventually won them over.
1 Comment
Paige Smith
4/10/2017 06:36:11 am
I enjoyed reading your passage. I liked how you brought up the idea of how depression can impact others once it impacts one person in the beginning. This film was a great example for how that is proven. This was a well written passage!
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