Resumo

The film The Virgin Suicides (1999), by Sofia Coppola, was based on the eponymous novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, and is analysed in this study from the hypothesis that the aesthetic ensemble of the work acts as the main narrative agent in the construction of the melancholy and confinement of the Lisbon sisters. Far from seeking causal explanations for the characters’ suicide, the study shifts the focus to the way in which they are observed, idealised, and transformed into icons by the external gaze – especially the collective male gaze that structures the film’s narrative.
The analysis is based on references from cinema, fashion and aesthetics, engaging with discussions on the male gaze, the aesthetic imagination of femininity, and the philosophy of fashion. Elements such as Nancy Steiner’s costume design – marked by small florals, delicate lace, and references to Pre-Raphaelite painting –, Edward Lachman’s cinematography, editing choices, colours, and the set design of the domestic space are examined, understood as parts of an aesthetic ensemble that acts as a frame for melancholy, visually structuring the confinement and inertia of the Lisbon sisters.
The tragedy of the Lisbon sisters does not reside solely in family authoritarianism or youthful melancholy, but in the weight of an aesthetic imagination that prevents them from being recognised as real subjects. By being loved as icons, and not as people, their existences become progressively stagnant, fused to the beauty that frames them: the cage of flowers.