In 2010, Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire released their third studio album, The

Suburbs. The lyrical content was inspired by Win and Will Butlers experiences
growing up in a suburban town outside of Houston. In an interview with NME
magazine, Win claimed that the album is neither a love letter to, nor an indictment
of the suburbs its a letter from the suburbs. To complement the album, the group
collaborated with filmmaker Spike Jonze to create a short film entitled Scenes from
the Suburbs that was packaged with the deluxe edition of the album; the music
video for The Suburbs is a section of that short film. The target audience for the
music video aligns with Arcade Fires demographic audience; ages 20-40, middle-toupper class, well educated, and inclined towards less mainstream forms of pop
culture. The target audience is reinforced by the decision to have Spike Jonze helm
the short film; he is a celebrated filmmaker (Her, Being John Malcovich) but more
niche than his blockbuster contemporaries. The film screened at film festivals
before its commercial release.
The beginning of the film establishes a sense of unease; the camera doesnt tighten
on the main character, but maintains a wary distance as he traverses a sprawling
landscape with sirens in the background. This brief clip is starkly contrasted with the
following scenes. When the music cuts in, the lighting is sun-drenched; the camera
maintains a cinematic scope but is interspersed with intimate close-ups on the
actors faces. The camera work is a bit shaky- the effect resonated with me as
authentic, breaking down the barrier between the audience and the subjects. The
intimacy of the camera work encapsulates the bursting emotions tied with
adolescence; from the lingering glances shared between friends, to the shots of a
young couple whispering in each others ears. While the scenery is still vast, the
jovial nature of the scenes align the visual metaphor of the setting closer with
adolescent freedom than the isolation of the films opening. The bike is used as a
symbol of youth and spiritedness; it is the only object that the camera focuses on
beyond the actors. In the first few scenes, imagery of police and armored cars are
shown, but are secondary; the cameras casual attention to them conveys the
apathetic attitude the kids have towards the presence of police in their town. While
we dont see the kids engaging with electronic devices, their apathy is reminiscent
of that posited by Gireoux in Selfie Culture; they seem to accept the surveillance
state as the status quo.
The apathy towards the police quickly dissipates- their appearance is more
threatening, donning black ski masks and automatic weapons. The lighting fades,
abruptly shifting from dusk to evening , and the close ups now convey
claustrophobia and fear, not intimacy. Bright spotlights are used to demonstrate the
invasiveness of the police either directed at the teenagers, or directly at the
camera. One shot shows a smashed bike, which succinctly captures the abrupt end
to adolescence the leads seem to be experiencing. The final scene takes place in a
fast food restaurant, with clinical, fluorescent lighting, as one of the boys beats on
the other. I saw this as a criticism of the consumer culture that props up the

American Dream of suburban living; it highlights that corporations are responsible

for the unraveling relationship between the characters. The relationship with the
police changes yet again as an armored car is flagged down to intervene; the size of
the truck relative to the girl is noticeable. The video ends with seven seconds of
blue skies with sirens quietly heard in the distance, which hearkens back to the
beginning of the video.
Despite Butlers assertion that the album is neither an attack nor a celebration of
suburbia, I found the video to be a bit more decisive in villainizing the current state
of the American Dream. The video shows how the police presence slowly
encroaches on day to day life, terrorizes the people it aims to protect, then forces
them to be dependent upon force for safety. This fear wipes out any good feelings
established by the sweetly nostalgic first few minutes of the video; the terror
creates chasms in friendships, and overwhelms to a point where any good memory
is perceived as inconsequential.
What I like best about the video is how deftly Jonze switches the tone throughout
the video he effectively captures a youthful nostalgia, and then quickly inspires a
sense of helplessness in what feels like a moments time. Given its brevity, the film
relies on triggering the viewers emotional memory to understand the content. This
connection is reminiscent of an assertion from Christine Rosens The Image Culture,
in which she described the most important messages that emanate from the
screen are those not verbalized the stories and myths hidden in its constant flow
of images. (10). The short is gorgeous to look at, but the feeling it leaves the
viewer with is haunting; by ending the video essentially as it begins, Jonze is able to
retroactively make the beginning scenes feel more insidious. The short reminded
me of other dark coming-of-age dramas, including American Beauty, Boyhood, and
The Spectacular Now. While there are elements of dystopia in the video, I focused
more intently on how the characters were reacting to their surroundings, which
made it feel more like a personal journey than one focused on community
surveillance.