Stone Cold Fox

Lux Lisbon played by the lovely Ms. Kirsten Dunst is one of my favorite on screen female characters. She's the girl you bad mouthed in highschool but longed to befriend, all the boys wanted her but she was too much for any of them to handle and they knew it. She represents virginal pre-womanhood and all of it's potent beauty. She carries such intense sadness and mystery behind her steely blue eyes, she's a dorment volcano of adolescent lust.

I always thought of Lux as sort of a super hero, so confident, so cool, so unattainable. I think any girl who saw this film whilst in highschool like I did studied her, wanted to be her. "The Virgin Suicides" was the first Sophia Coppola film I'd ever seen, I loved the way it looked and made me feel. When Tripp finally catches the attention of Lux, it leads to her downfall, I'm convinced she dies from a broken heart. When she loses her virginity to Tripp, then he leaves her on the football field and it was like her mystery, her magic had dissolves in the morning light. Lux was the heart of the girls, the silent leader of the Lisbon sisters. There was never really a solid explanation as to why they commited their group suicide but it always seemed like representation of something all women go through, a metophorical death of our childhood through the loss of our virginity. Maybe seeing somebody as powerful as Lux fall from grace meant certain doom to the other girls, maybe Lux orchestrated the whole group suicide, I've never been sure. The only thing that I do know is that the power of virginity in every culture is praised and cultivated since the beginning of time. I stumbled upon some fascinating stuff via Wikipedia about the order of Priestessses know as The Vestals, here's a little bit about them...

The dignities accorded to the vestals were significant.

• in an era when religion was rich in pageantry, the presence of the College of Vestal Virgins was required in numerous public ceremonies and wherever they went, they were transported in a carpentum, a covered two-wheeled carriage, preceded by a lictor, and had the right-of-way;
• at public games and performances they had a reserved place of honor;
• unlike most Roman women, they were not subject to the patria potestas and so were free to own property, make a will, and vote;
• they gave evidence without the customary oath;
• they were, on account of their incorruptible character, entrusted with important wills and state documents, like public treaties;
• their person was sacrosanct: death was the penalty for injuring their person and their escorts protected anyone from assault;
• they could free condemned prisoners and slaves by touching them - if a person who was sentenced to death saw a vestal virgin on his way to the execution, he was automatically pardoned.
• they were allowed to throw ritual straw figurines called Argei, into the Tiber on May 15.

"The vestal virgins were committed to the priesthood at a young age (before puberty) and were sworn to celibacy for a period of 30 years. These 30 years were, in turn, divided into three periods of a decade each: ten as students, ten in service, and ten as teachers. Afterwards, they could marry if they chose to do so.^[8] However, few took the opportunity to leave their respected role in very luxurious surroundings. This would have required them to submit to the authority of a man, with all the restrictions placed on women by Roman law. On the other hand, a marriage to a former vestal virgin was highly honoured...The punishment for violating the oath of celibacy was to be buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus or "Evil Fields" (an underground chamber near the Colline gate) with a few days of food and water... Ancient tradition required that a disobedient vestal virgin be buried within the city, that being the only way to kill her without spilling her blood, which was forbidden." Wikipedia

I plan on researching the subject further but for now let's just listen to some music shall we?
Here's Heart's Magic Man, which is played when Tripp Fontaine makes his entrance into the film.

Music Playlist at MixPod.com