'Scenes From The Suburbs' Trailer: Spike Jonze And Arcade Fire Go Amblin

The latest film from Spike Jonze is Scenes From the Suburbs, a 28-minute short created in collaboration with members of the recent Grammy winners Arcade Fire. Bandleader Win Butler wrote the film with his brother William Butler, and the story follows suburban kids during one summer where military control of their town makes the lazy days more aimless than ever. Win Butler narrates the trailer for the film, which you can see after the break.

As we told you recently, Scenes From the Suburbs stars unknowns (Sienna Blau, Sam Dillon, Zoe Graham, Zeke Jarmon, Paul Pluymen and Ashlin Williams) and was described as follows in the Berlin festival program:

"I wish I could remember every little moment. But I can't. Why do I only remember the moments that I do. I wonder what happens to the others." A group of suburban youths. Back then, in the summer, so long ago. They couldn't leave town because outside the country was at war and the military controlled life and all gateways. The teenagers wander aimlessly about town. Winter is a long way off. And love and longing and friendship still mean – everything.

The trailer definitely gets a lot of that across, existing on a sort of parallel track to the video for the song 'The Suburbs,' which we showed you back in November and which is embedded again after the trailer.

Scenes From the Suburbs will play this week at SXSW; that'll be the film's second showing after the Berlin premiere last month. A DVD release is forthcoming in May.

Just don't expect a full-fledged sci-fi narrative, as Win Butler told the LA Times last month:

When we were little kids, we'd watch a lot of cheesy '80s movies that we were too young to be able to be watching, and you'd always just end up watching the first half, before your parents would come in and rescue you, and so it's kind of a little inspired by just watching the first half of films and not having to figure out how to resolve them.

[24Bit]