One of the most predominantly memorable, yet overlooked shots in Sofia Coppola's 1999 masterpiece is a shot of a Japanese parasol next to Cecilia during her first attempted suicide. A parasol from a culture with the highest suicide rate of all time, where an act which seems cowardly or immature in other societies is seen culturally as an act of honor.

The Lisbon girls are but shadows. Their faces once remembered vividly by the neighborhood boys are almost completely diminished. All that's left if the mysteriously beautiful times they shared before a future was lost. 

Just like their very own tree on their front lawn, the Lisbon girls appear normal but are extremely sick. The comprehension of the surrounding citizens…

Recollecting their memories from the past a group of men reflect upon the five Lisbon sisters Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia whose lives ended tragically and mysteriously in the 70's.

From the opening frame you are in the quest of what is happening to these sisters. Starting with Cecilia, 13 years old who commits suicide while telling her doctor that he doesn't know what it is meant to be a 13 year old girl in their household. Brought up in a strict home where the mother of these sisters try to shut down any luxury they can have.

Hidden in their isolations, with a smile on their faces. It is very difficult to read what these sisters are thinking.…

A brilliant adaptation of a great book. It strikes me watching this now how this is somehow a movie about the male gaze made by a woman. The boys are too busy viewing the girls as the objects of their desire to consider their humanity. Sure, on some level, they’re too young to contextualize the signs of the Lisbon girls’ abuse, but they also don’t seem to consider the girls have the same anxieties they do. Or at least anxieties at all. They remain mysterious ideals throughout—even years later. The boys go over the “facts” when they see each other at parties and still the ending frames it as the girls unwilling to take notice of the boys’ affection, as…

this film is really beautifully considered, from the cinematography to the set design and the music, its totally spot on.
1) i didn't realise the summer camp song beyond clueless is about the virgin suicides, it literally takes the quote "and the trees like lungs filling up with air, my sister the mean one pulling my hair"

2) a quote from a dazed article i often go back to when Jeffrey Eugenides was asked; "Do you think Kirsten Dunst was too pretty to play Lux?" he replied:"Well, I wanted the sisters to be quite alluring, so I didn’t have a problem with that. But with a book like this no one should really play the characters, because the girls are…