14 Febbraio 1999. Nicolas Godin e Jean-Benoît Dunckel, due appartati e misconosciuti falsari francesi, sono reduci dal mirabolante colpo che è rimasto alle cronache come "Moon Safari" (1998). Appagati dai proventi di questo furto vivono in incognito a Parigi. Il loro covo è un anonimo appartamento nel Marais, alla cui porta compare solamente una sigla: AIR (Amour, Imagination, Rêve).
In quella fredda mattinata parigina, qualcuno ha introdotto sotto la porta una busta bianca: dietro compenso "hollywoodiano", una giovane regista americana li incarica di comporre la colonna sonora del film "Il giardino delle vergini suicide", storia tratta da un fatto veramente accaduto negli USA nei primi anni '70. Il compito è arduo: riprodurre le sonorità caratteristiche dell'epoca in cui si svolsero i fatti.
La busta rimane qualche giorno sul VCS3 che, all'ingresso, funge più che altro da posacenere.
Le nuvole basse hanno messo radici sopra la Senna e piove da giorni...forse hanno già detto tutto, forse fanno solo musica per ascensori e aereoporti...sono in evidente crisi creativa. Però il contratto è di quelli che non si può rifiutare...
Decidono allora per il gesto disperato: introdursi negli studi Abbey Road di Londra e trafugarne gli archivi.
Dopo una notte lisergica a Camden Town, percorrono, ancora nell'oscurità, la banchina del Regent's Canal e giungono ben presto nei pressi dei famosi studi londinesi.
Incuranti del sistema di allarme, si introducono dalla scala antincendio, e con sistemi ben noti alla criminalità di Pigalle hanno gioco facile con la serratura della porta antipanico. L'impianto di allarme tuttavia fa il suo sporco lavoro e scatta immediatamente: di corsa i due si dirigono verso lo scantinato ed entrano in una stanza contrassegnata dalla targa "Archives 1970-1975": non resta che raccogliere alla cieca i primi nastri a portata di mano e tagliare la corda.
Rientrati fortunosamente a Parigi, scoprono che i nastri in loro possesso, sono registrazioni scartate dai Pink Floyd, datate febbraio 1972: il seguito incompiuto di Meddle, rigettato e disconosciuto prima della pubblicazione da Roger Waters.
Non resta che lavorare di copia incolla, darlo alle stampe ed attribuirsene la paternità...
AIR - The Virgini Suicides -2000
Elenco tracce testi e video
06 The Word 'Hurricane' (02:33)
The word 'Hurricane' is the name given to nature's strongest storm.
A hurricane occurs when high pressure and low pressure masses of air
come in contact with one another.
There is often a significant difference in temperature
between the two masses.
One mass is warm, while the other is cold.
The warmer air rises, and the cooler air falls.
Likewise, the low pressure area slides down the sides
of the high pressure area.
They swirl in and around one another, creating the beginnings of the storm.
09 Afternoon Sister (02:25)
[Jean-Benoît Dunckel/Nicolas Godin]
--- Instrumental ---
13 Suicide Underground (05:53)
Everyone dated the demise of our neighborhood from the suicides of the Lisbon girls.
People saw their clairvoyance in the wiped-out elms and harsh sunlight.
Some thought the torture tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them:
So full of flaws.
But the only thing we are certain of after all these years is the insufficiency of explenation.
"Obviously doctor, you've never been a thirteen year-old girl."
The Lisbon girls were 13, Cecillia, 14, Lux, 15, Bonnie, 16, Mary, and 17, Therese.
No one could understand how Mrs. Lisbon and Mr. Lisbon, our math teacher, had produced such beautiful creatures.
From that time on, the Lisbon house began to change.
Almost every day, and even when she wasn't keeping an eye on Cecilia,
Lux would suntan on her towel wearing a swimsuit that caused the knife-sharpener to give her a 15-minute demonstration for free.
The only reliable boy who got to know Lux was Trip Fontaine
For only 18 months before the suicides had emerged from baby fat
To the delight of girls and mothers alike.
But few anticipated it would be so drastic.
The girls were pulled out of school, and Mrs. Lisbon shut the house for maximum security isolation.
The girls' only contact to the outside world was through the catalogs
They ordered that started to fill the Lisbon's mailbox with pictures of high-end fashions and brochures for exotic vacations.
Unable to go anywhere, the girls traveled in their imaginations:
To gold-tipped Siamese temples or past an old man, the leaf broom tidying the maw carpeted speck of Japan.
And Cecelia hadn't died. She was a bride in Calcutta.
Collecting everything we could of theirs, we couldn't get the Lisbon girls out of our minds, but they were slipping away.
The colours of their eyes were fading, along with exact locations of moles and dimples.
From five, they had become four, and they were all, the living and the dead, become shadows.
We would have lost them completely if the girls hadn't contacted us.
Lux was the last to go.
Fleeing from the house, we forgot to stop at the garage.
After the suicide free-for-all, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon gave up any attempt to lead a normal life.
They had Mr. Hedly pack up the house, selling what furniture he could at a garage sale.
Everyone went just to look.
Our parents did not buy used furniture, and they certainly didn't buy furniture tainted by death.
We of course took the family photos that were put out with the trash.
Mr. Lisbon put the house on the market, and it was sold to a young couple from Boston.
It didn't matter in the end how old they had been, or that they were girls.
But only that we had loved them, and that they hadn't heard us calling; still do not hear us.
Calling them out of those rooms where they went to be alone for all time. alone in suicide,
Which is deeper than death,
And where we will never find the pieces to put them back together.
Carico i commenti... con calma
Altre recensioni
Di Axelmoloko
La colonna sonora rimanda a tutto meno che alle atmosfere elettro-pop a cui i parigini Air ci hanno brillantemente abituato.
Un tappeto sonoro in perfetta sintonia con le ambientazioni e le malinconiche sequenze.
