(Don't) Rediscover
9 Songs
Dir: Michael Winterbottom
2004
(Don't) Rediscover is a series of reviews highlighting past releases that have flown under the radar and don't deserve a second look.
This film is about sex. Not simulated, but actual, graphic sex. If you're looking for porn, you might get some gratification, but porn is not the goal of this movie. Letting director Michael Winterbottom get his artistic rocks off? You bet.
The story follows two characters doing two things: fucking and seeing concerts. Laid out over the course of a few months, the movie opens with Matt (Kieran O'Brian), a young environmental scientist, recalling his love affair with Lisa (Margo Stilley), a student he met at a concert. By the end of the night, the two are in bed, and thus begins the affair. The film is narrated by Matt throughout and makes up 70 percent of the dialogue, with the other 30 percent being moans or sexual conversations of one kind or another. Although this film shares duplicity between the music and the naked spaces in between, it fails to meets the standard for a "film." The plot is thin and the characters virtually unexplored. The lack of dialogue leaves this story more of a blank canvas than a masterpiece. There are some majestic scenic shots of fly-bys over the South Pole, where Matt is doing his research. This gives some credence to the legitimacy of this "film," but those moments are scattered and over too quickly to have impact.
Winterbottom uses the naked body like Leary used acid- blunt and with zeal. There are no secrets or camera tricks used. A blow job on screen in a non-XXX format has been somewhat taboo until The Brown Bunny did it a year earlier. Simulated is one thing, but lips on cock are a more factual act. Showing actual penetration is ratings suicide. Doing it multiple times is just a good reason to have your movie released with a NR rating.
9 Songs debuted at Cannes in 2004. Each screening was a packed house, standing-room-only fare as the word spread about the films content, proving that some taboos, no matter how dark they may be, are going to be explored. Winterbottom is not a stranger to giving you the blunt truth, no matter how ugly it is. Welcome to Sarajevo was a study on the ethnic cleansing that sparked civil war in Yugoslavia, and easily gave rise to his star as a director. 24 Hour Party People, a loosely factual account of Tony Wilson, owner of Factory Records and manager for music groups Joy Division and Happy Mondays to name a few, was a look into the darker side of the music industry, and the director's best film to date.
This movie is also about music and includes nine live songs. Concert footage of the likes of Elbow, the Von Bondies, Primal Scream, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Franz Ferdinand is very well done. Multiple cameras catching entire performances of one song by each of the groups in different venues provide the only art in this art house film. Ultimately,no matter how good the music is, it isn't enough to save this train wreck. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll are usually essential in a music film, but the focus never really shifts off of the bodies of the actors, leaving this film finished before it ever really started.
9 Songs is more about the subject rather than the characters. The music just provides a good soundtrack. If you're going to rent it, find the directors cut to get the full impact of the film. Better yet, skip the film and just watch the outtakes of the music performances and save yourself from the let down.
by Josh Vietti