Art and youth create unbreakable bonds I saw the TV Glow, director Jane Schoenbrun’s melancholy and claustrophobic document of suburban exteriors. Schoenbrun has spoken internally interviews about how, as a child, they chose to process their identity through fiction rather than “really look in the mirror and find out who I am.” With I saw the TV Glow, they put a surreal spin on the way in which cherished cultural objects allow us to express emotions that are difficult to express. At the heart of the film – the director’s first since their acclaimed Internet horror We are all going to the World’s Fair– have two teenage characters obsessed with secrets and myth The Fuzzy Pink, a half-hour monster-of-the-week TV show every week in a terrifying horror scene Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The X-Files. Watching the show, the characters find a way out for their feelings of loneliness – and as boundaries between their physical lives and the world of The Fuzzy Pink meltdown, they come to wonder if their memories of the series might be more real than reality.
The soundtrack seems designed to evoke strong reactions among the audience. Plus a ghost score from Alex G– who returns after him work forward We are all going to the World’s Fair—the film features a strong collection of original songs from artists that inspire a fevered fandom not unlike the characters’ obsession with The Fuzzy Pink. Collecting songs from singer-songwriters (Florist, Maria BC), fuzz-scuffed indie-rock artists (Bartees Strange, Jay Som), and off-kilter pop tricks (Caroline Polachek, island).
The film is firmly rooted in the icons and cultural touchstones of the 1990s – characters think about appearance Evan Dando and Michael Stipe, and posters for Sarah Records pinned to their walls. And although the soundtrack is full of artists from the 2020s, most of them reach for sounds that evoke the end of the 20th century. Jay Som’s “If I Could” is lit by a shimmering guitar riff that sings as clear as Bandwagonesque. Saturn’s slide guitar smear “How Do I Find Out?” plays like a hazy memory of the best songwriters on Drag City in the 90s. Even Polachek ditches her slick synth-pop moves for an anthemic boot on “Star burned and no kisses.” Although the reference points are clear, the songs never feel too reverent – they are often loose and deliberately otherworldly, as if heard in the depths of a dream.
That approach is clearer in the case of yeule cover from A broken social sceneand”Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl.” On the surface, it’s grim trailer rendition of a song that has long been the unofficial anthem for teenagers – a particularly on-the-nose choice to start a film about teenage angst. But beneath the track’s heavy roof surface is something stranger: a distant memory of the original, riddled with glitches, with vocals that slip and swirl around the meditative backing track. Where Broken Social Scene’s recording is rhythmically locked in and mantra-like, Yeule’s version is distant and dissociative, a bedridden memory of a long-ago adolescence. The soundtrack’s most poignant emotional move, yeule’s song also offers the most vivid illustration of the film’s delight in linear time-bending. Both I saw the TV Glow and his soundtrack begins in ways that feel familiar and nostalgic before receding into the shadows, conveying the memories of a young, unknown lover.
2024-05-11 07:14:30
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