Blu-Ray Review: Experimental ‘9 Songs’ Favors Sexuality Over Story

Printer-friendly versionE-mail page to friendPDF version

CHICAGO – Is Michael Winterbottom’s 2004 curiosity little more than art house porn? It certainly would seem that way to any consumer who happens to glimpse at the film’s Blu-Ray case, which boasts that the disc contains the “full uncut explicit version” of “9 Songs.” There’s also a disclaimer warning that the film “contains sexually explicit content.” In the words of “Family Guy”’s Quagmire, “Oh…right.”

Like Soderbergh, Winterbottom is a versatile risk-taker who doesn’t shy away from courting controversy. From 1995’s “Butterfly Kiss” to this year’s “The Killer Inside Me,” the fearless filmmaker has utilized uncompromising depictions of violence and sexuality in order to plunge the audience headfirst into the psyche of his characters. In two of his best recent efforts, “Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story” and “The Road to Guantanamo,” Winterbottom has also proven his gift for blurring the line between documented reality and scripted fiction.

Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0

“9 Songs” attempts to tell the story of a year-long affair through the use of actual sexual activity between its two gutsy actors, Kieran O’Brien (from Winterbottom’s “24 Hour Party People”) and newcomer Margo Stilley. The voyeuristic lens of cinematographer Marcel Zyskind nearly appears to be engaging in a threesome with the couple, as it spares no detail of their sex life. There are several close-ups of male and female genitalia, and the film culminates in a scene of onscreen penetration. But the closer we physically get to knowing these characters, the more emotionally detached we are from them. The film is as intense and as empty as a one-night stand, and that’s exactly as it should be.

Margo Stilley and Kieran O’Brien star in Michael Winterbottom’s 9 Songs.
Photo credit: Vivendi Entertainment

British glaciologist Matt (O’Brien) first encounters Lisa (Stilley), a college student visiting from the U.S., at a London rock concert set within Brixton Academy. The forceful rhythm of the music by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club perfectly gels with the rhythm of the couple’s subsequent lovemaking. But Winterbottom continues to jarringly cut back and forth between intimate character scenes and live musical performances that fail on multiple levels. They are murkily shot from the audience’s POV, barely comprehensible (unaided by the disc’s lack of subtitles), and as tedious as prolonged commercial breaks. With the exception of a tender piano solo by Michael Nyman, the music blurs together, yet its youthful sensibility is appropriate for the material. These bands, which include The Dandy Warhols, The Von Bondies and the wonderfully named Primal Scream, would only appeal to audience members who haven’t graduated into the realm of adulthood.

9 Songs was released on Blu-Ray on May 18th, 2010. Photo credit: Vivendi Entertainment

It’s as if Winterbottom was making a conscious effort to have “9 Songs” resemble a glorified student film about the current generation’s culture of “hooking up,” where relationships consist solely of sex with no strings attached. By stripping sex of its eroticism, the film allows its graphic content to operate on a level that’s anything but pornographic. By failing to stimulate two of the body’s most powerful sexual organs, the mind and the heart, the sex scenes in “9 Songs” come off as cold and mechanical. Perhaps the most poignant moment in the film is when Matt discovers that his role in Lisa’s life could easily be replaced by a vibrator.

The closest cinematic relative to “9 Songs” may be Joe Swanberg’s “Kissing on the Mouth,” which was released a year later and observed the sex lives of twentysomethings with similar straightforward frankness (both films include notorious shots of their male star ejaculating). Neither film works as a satisfying narrative, but as a refreshingly honest portrait of human sexuality, they are rather fascinating. Yet in comparison with the 24-year-old Swanberg’s micro-budgeted directorial debut, Winterbottom’s “9 Songs” is surprisingly the more pretentious of the two pictures. This is most apparent during the wholly unnecessary scenes where Matt wanders through Antarctica, which functions merely as an obvious metaphor for his relationship. “You’re isolated in a vast, empty continent,” Matt narrates, “Claustrophobia and agoraphobia in the same place, like two people in a bed.” We get it, Matt. We get it.

“9 Songs” is presented in 1080p High Definition (with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio) that barely makes the grainy handheld picture quality any clearer than it already is on DVD. What’s disappointing is that the film’s Blu-Ray release is accompanied by absolutely no special features. I suppose a cast and crew commentary may have proven to be exceedingly awkward, and the filming of a making-of documentary may have broken the mood onset. The production was sort of an in-and-out job anyway.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com matt@hollywoodchicago.com