Visions of Teen Angst, Then and Now

June 29th, 2011

When I was a kid, films like Better Off Dead, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and many others, told stories about the seemingly infinite number of ways that being a teenager could suck..

I know these types of films are still made, and while I have no idea what the modern versions are like, my guess is that many of the same stories and stereotypes are being rehashed again and again. Different clothes. Different hair. Different music.

Now, speaking of music, I happen to listen to The Arcade Fire on occasion, and I noticed that they made a short film called, Scenes from the Suburbs, that is based on their album, The Suburbs.

In Scenes from the Suburbs, you might think that it’s going to run along some theme that you’ve seen a dozen times before, and it does, but it’s what’s going on around the characters in the suburbs that will get you to do a double take.

These aren’t the suburbs of the Lane Meyer and Ferris Bueller days. These suburbs are Snowcrash style corporate burbclaves, complete with mercenary armies, shakedowns and worse:

Watch the whole film at Mubi.

4 Responses to “Visions of Teen Angst, Then and Now”

  1. spongeluke says:

    that trailer is not what i expected.

    on another note, the chasm between the super-band of yesteryear, The Beatles, and today’s super-band, Radiohead, is remarkable.

  2. Are you getting this down under?

    Not available out here in Central America.

  3. shoe2one says:

    Very different indeed.

    I was old enough to drive down to the Chinese Grauman’s theatre to see the opening of Star Wars, with 6 or 8 sub-woofers. The last teenage angst movie I watched, that I liked, or that I thought had something to say was “Rushmore”.

    Times are very different indeed. If you want to see a good funny non-doom movie, The Burbs. Super 8 did make me forget about things for about 10 minutes. I was a poorer version of the guy who wanted to make films 🙂

  4. Eileen says:

    Kevin,
    That video is from Arcade Fire??? Holy mackerel.
    I like Arcade Fire music a lot. My station http://www.wyep.org plays them quite a bit, but the same selection. Will watch the video another day. Thank you for the post.

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