AIR - THE VIRGIN SUICIDES
It is not often that a soundtrack stands tall away from the film. Personally, Virgin Suicides is the most accurate description of how we (highly hormonal teenagers) feel, and Air has embody this emotion in their music. So of course, the music is dark, with the occasional bright guitar riff or mulling piano solo. Air has created a masterpiece in that it not only serves its purpose as a soundtrack, but also stands alone as a brilliant album. The mixture of electronics and synthesisers, with choirs, singing and floatacious drums, makes for an album sounding similar to the film's time period (which is the sixties) while also modernising the sound into a very instrumental driven feel.
Firstly, the first, Playground Love. The video clip for this song shows pieces of gum singing the song, stuck to dinner-plates, school-tables and shoes amongst other things. We go in and out of the Virgin Suicides world, at times seeing the fourth wall broken in a attempt to make the song even more personal. It's intimate, and it plucks heart strings like they're that of an electric guitar. And I swear, if I die tomorrow this is one of the songs I'd like played. The somber sounds are what one should cry to, love to, and live to, and it is as if they have been playing in the back of our minds for most of our lives.
Apart from that, there are some wonderful songs like Empty House, a great scene setter for suicide and dead bodies. Ironic, the next song's Dead Bodies, a rush of drums and dramatic choristers. Also, the samples used from the film aren't in anyway, random or misfitting, which is nice for a change. Everything feels unified, with a similar taste, yet happily it's not repetitive.
For once we see a soundtrack actually doing something. Rather than it staying in the shadows of the movie, instead it is a celebrated extension of it. Air has made a truthful rendition of the emotions in the film: deep, dark and highly hormonal. Listen to this if you're considering jumping out of your window onto a fence spike, impaling yourself like Cecilia did.
Favourite Song: Dirty Trip
Favourite Line: '...obviously doctor, you've never been a fourteen year-old girl...'
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