We've been hearing talk of an Arcade Fire/Spike Jonze film collaboration ever since last spring, and our curiosity will soon be satisfied. Scenes from the Suburbs premiered this week at the Berlin International Film Festival, which is taking place this month in Germany. Now, the band members have opened up about what audiences can expect from the 30-minute short.
Singer Win Butler spoke with reporters about the film [via the National Post], which is being billed as a companion piece to last year's Grammy Award-winning LP The Suburbs. It builds off last year's Jonze-helmed music video for "The Suburbs" (see below), showing footage of teenagers on bikes interspersed with images of adults being rounded up by soldiers.
Viewers shouldn't expect the dystopic story to have a clear narrative or offer easy answers. "When we were little kids, we would watch a lot of kind of cheesy '80s movies that we were too young to be able to be watching and you'd always end up watching just the first half because your parents would come in," explained Butler. "And so it's kind of a little bit inspired by just watching the first half of films.
"We were hopefully trying to show some of the emotions and emotional links without necessarily getting deep into the plot. We decided to cut some of the explanatory material in the hopes of more emotional and impressionistic work."
He revealed that the project was conceived towards the end of the album recording process. "We didn't even have time to do my 30th birthday party but it was kind of the best birthday of all time because we were just so deep into making the film and finishing the record," said Butler.
Go here to read more about Scenes from the Suburbs. Hopefully the film will premiere in North America soon. Maybe once it does people will finally figure out exactly who Arcade Fire are.
Singer Win Butler spoke with reporters about the film [via the National Post], which is being billed as a companion piece to last year's Grammy Award-winning LP The Suburbs. It builds off last year's Jonze-helmed music video for "The Suburbs" (see below), showing footage of teenagers on bikes interspersed with images of adults being rounded up by soldiers.
Viewers shouldn't expect the dystopic story to have a clear narrative or offer easy answers. "When we were little kids, we would watch a lot of kind of cheesy '80s movies that we were too young to be able to be watching and you'd always end up watching just the first half because your parents would come in," explained Butler. "And so it's kind of a little bit inspired by just watching the first half of films.
"We were hopefully trying to show some of the emotions and emotional links without necessarily getting deep into the plot. We decided to cut some of the explanatory material in the hopes of more emotional and impressionistic work."
He revealed that the project was conceived towards the end of the album recording process. "We didn't even have time to do my 30th birthday party but it was kind of the best birthday of all time because we were just so deep into making the film and finishing the record," said Butler.
Go here to read more about Scenes from the Suburbs. Hopefully the film will premiere in North America soon. Maybe once it does people will finally figure out exactly who Arcade Fire are.
