ACMI Presents Sofia Coppola on Film
The Virgin Suicides, Lost In Translation, Marie Antoinette & Somewhere will screen.
The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), much to our delight, is presenting an oeuvre of Sofia Coppola's films this February. Having gained a cult following for the quiet contemplations of femininity that she depicts in her work, four of Coppola's films will play at the centre based in Melbourne - The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost In Translation (2003), Marie Antoinette (2006) and Somewhere (2010). "Sofia Coppola has created a girls' own gallery of screen heroines suspended in a gossamer-coated filmic space between self-doubt and knowingness," says curator and ACMI Film Programmer Roberta Ciabarra. "Coppola's quietly questing female protagonists beguile and enchant even as they remain a mystery to themselves."
The Virgin Suicides is based on Jeffrey Eugenides' book of the same name, and follows the lives (and demises) of five teenage sisters - Cecilia, Bonnie, Mary, Therese and Lux, who is played infamously by Kirsten Dunst. Her first feature-length, Coppola paints a disconcerting and doomed portrait of suburban life, all while teasing out the ups and downs of adolescence.
Lost In Translation is both directed and written by Coppola, winning three Golden Globes and an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Two lost souls, Bob (Bill Murray) and Charlott (Scarlett Johansson), meet in a lonely hotel bar, forging some form of unconventional intimacy to the backdrop of cold marble corridors and Tokyo's neon lights.
With a soundtrack featuring the likes of New Order and The Strokes, Marie Antoinette takes the years leading up to the French Revolution as its context and the teen queen Marie Antoinette as its protagonist. Rather than being anchored in history however, Coppola is more interested in looking at the life of a young girl who, although is surrounded by privilege, is ultimately unfulfilled.
Somewhere won the 2010 Venice Film Festival Golden Lion award, and stars Elle Fanning as Cleo, the eleven-year-old daughter of an emotionally estranged hipster actor who is disconnected to his LA surroundings but rediscovers a vigour for life when reunited with his child.
Sofia Coppola on Film opens on Thursday February 23 and runs until Monday February 27. Tickets prices are $15 (full-paying), $12 (concession) and $11 (ACMI Member's) and can be purchased via the ACMI website.
Ingrid Kesa
