Scenes from the Suburbs

The short film Scenes from the Suburbs is an imaginative audiovisual supplement to Arcade Fire’s album The Suburbs. Actually, we can say that the combination of this film, the album and the music video for its lead single, which contains a number of extra shots not seen in the film, and the movie poster comprises a multimedia project that brings viewers and listeners a stirring melancholic impression of a world that has much in common with our own, but mainly engulfs viewers in the diverse, exuberant feelings associated with growing up and nostalgically looking back on that time in one’s life from the perspective of adulthood. The film’s premise literally realises the album’s expressive lyrics, thus bringing forth a kind of alternate reality in which individual suburban neighbourhoods function as separate military-controlled states separated by secured borders. This environment, where moving to another neighbourhood means the end of existing friendships and relationships, is the setting of a retrospective narrative that shows glimpses of the experiences of a group of adolescent friends during one fateful summer. The introductory monologue of the narrator, who says that he remembers only certain things and unfortunately not others, foreshadows the fact that the audience will not see the whole story, but only glimpses of it, from which we will not know exactly what happened, but we will feel the full emotional impact of the events and the changes in the characters. In the hands of Spike Jonze, this concept has been transformed into a captivating and intoxicating work that brilliantly expresses not only the carefree and excited emotionality of youth, but also the weight and pain of the inevitable end that comes with adolescence. Furthermore, all of this is set in a superbly melancholic world that is contemporary, fantastical and retro in equal measure – the film’s creators acknowledge that they were inspired by the films of Terry Gilliam, 1980s children’s movies such as E.T. and The Goonies, as well as the generational cult movie/guilty pleasure Red Dawn. (04.05.2014)

Spike Jonze is definitely an interesting director and here he has created a good framework for the music of the band Arcade Fire, which I don't listen to at all. Honestly, it doesn't really matter for the film, it's more about whether it captures your attention as a whole. In my case, it didn't completely succeed, although there are hints that it could be great. (30.09.2014)