Perhaps it's because I'm winding down from uni and doing incredibly picturesque things like wandering through the library stacks looking for books on medieval german literature and cooking macaroons with my mother, but the easter break always makes me want to watch Sofia Coppola films. All of them - the Virigin Suicides, Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette, even even her little masterpiece of a television promo for Miss Dior Cherie - have this kind of wide-eyed cheekiness and quiet simplicity that fits in perfectly with the current mood, a transition from heady summer into the calmness of autumn. I roll my sleeves down. I contemplate buying ankle boots and put away my havianas. I long to nibble on sourdough toast, chunky beef stew and, of all things, fruitcake.
Even in Coppola's most decadent of films - Marie Antoinette - there is a quietness and a calmness that is very comforting. The stillness of her films is arresting, think the Lisbon girls flashing lights to communicate with the boys, of Charlotte stumbling upon the tranquil flower arranging class, or the young Marie Antoinette tracing love hearts into the fogged over windows of her carriage. Sofia Coppola is my favourite director for her ability to turn the mundane moments of life into something magical. Even if it is at the expense of fidelity to original source material (fictional or historical) - fidelity is over-rated anyway. It is enough to have these moments of calm, quiet, serene perfection - and to realise that what strikes you as so perfect is something that is, also, so normal and so ordinary. Sake-soaked nights at Karaoke bars. elevator rides with strangers. the thrill of new shoes.
1. the virgin suicides2&3. lost in translation
3&4. marie antoinette
May's Harpers Bazaar has a column by Lisa Armstrong mourning the passing of Alexander McQueen and the loss the fashion world has sustained. She describes his ability to capture the 'wide-eyed' aspect of fashion, where the gloves come off, the shades fall down, and suddenly you are that eager fashion intern once more, bagging clothes with stars in your eyes and chipped nail polish. Sofia Coppola is that director - I know of no other who is able to capture so succinctly, so poignantly, the wide-eyed nature of life in her films. Think of how she shot Tokyo with the eager, almost frantic eyes of a first-time lover. Or how we as viewers progress with marie antoinette through the stages of wonder, amusement, discontent and despair in relation to her opulent versailles surrounding.
I know for those of you in the northern hemisphere this will be completely superfluous - as you are coming into spring and not autumn - but imagine Sydney with the sky greying over and the trees dropping their golden leaves to the ground. Slip into leggings and the biggest, comfiest jumper you own and switch on a Sofia Coppola film, and let autumn's melancholy sweetness wash over you. Everything is changing, and so are you. But Sofia Coppola will make it all look so damn good.
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