Arcade Fire’s short film directed by Spike Jonze to premiere at the Berlin Film Festival
Looks like the rumours are true: Arcade Fire’s most recent album, The Suburbs, has inspired a movie directed by Spike Jonze. According to this press release, the short film Scenes From the Suburbs is premiering at this February’s Berlin Film Festival. Arcade Fire’s front man, Win Butler, first mentioned that there was a cinematic Arcade-Jonze collaboration in the works in an interview back in August. Described as a “B-movie companion piece” for The Suburbs, the film was written by Butler along with his brother and Jonze after the Being John Malkovich director produced images inspired by Arcade Fire’s music that reminded Butler of an idea he once had for a sci-fi film.
Fans first got a preview of the film through a music video for the album’s title track released in late 2010. Set in a suburb (duh), the video plays on lyrics describing a “suburban war,” blending carefree images of youth with scenes of militarized suburbia. The album itself also explores Butler’s own memories of growing up on the outskirts of Houston, Texas, before relocating to Montreal. According to the press release, “In Scenes From the Suburbs, Spike Jonze expands the music video into a film without abandoning the structure of a clip. The future has become reality. And the threat lies in the proximity of the military. Memories of a past summer.”
In 2009, Jonze received rave reviews for a nuanced portrayal of childhood in his silver screen adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book Where the Wild Things Are. This success alongside the music video for “The Suburbs” leaves us wanting more Arcade Fire and more Jonze. No word on Canadian screenings of Scenes From the Suburbs, but we’ve certainly got our fingers crossed.
