Review: 9 Songs

When I went to see 9 Songs, I told my friends who were going to see it with me, "Look, I'm not making any promises about this film; all I know about it, is that it's supposed to be very steamy and sexy, and it revolves around music, specifically nine songs by some bands I like". And that pretty much sums up the movie, although calling 9 Songs "steamy and sexy" is perhaps a bit like saying that a Quentin Tarantino film "dabbles" in violence and foul language.

9 Songs is a very well done, artsy sex flick, interspersed with the nine songs of the title, which drive what little narrative there is to the film. The film tells the story of the relationship between nice Brit guy Matt, a glaciologist, and Lisa, a highly-sexed, somewhat nutty, 21-year-old American studying for a year in London. Specifically, the film is about Matt and Lisa having lots and lots of very graphic and hot sex, and about Matt's efforts to get closer to Lisa, who doesn't really want anything but his constant sexual attention and many, many orgasms.

There are shots of Antarctica interspersed throughout the film; Matt narrates the story after the relationship ends while on a trip to the frozen continent, and the continent itself - its barren, endless coldness, with glaciers breaking off from the land to eventually disintegrate in icy waters, is there to serve as a metaphor for Matt's relationship with Lisa more than to interest us with how cool it is that Matt is a glaciologist (although, I must admit, that did get a "that's a cool job!" thought from me - how many glaciologists do you know?).

Director Michael Winterbottom (Welcome to Sarajevo, 24 Hour Party People) does a really nice job with the sex scenes. Unlike a lot of basic porn flicks, which tend to be shot from the over lit, big-lights-aimed-at-a-cheap-hotel-bed, "hurry up, we only have this room for another 2 hours" school of sex cinematography, 9 Songs goes to great lengths to show us sex as art. Perfectly lit shots of a mouth on a nipple, a kiss backlit by sunlight through a window, a hand tracing a belly, the perfect curve of buttocks and thighs - even the pounding, thrusting bits were a cut above your average sex film.

There's enough oral sex, masturbation and penetration to satisfy even the most discriminating of sex film connoisseurs. In spite of the abundance of graphic sex, though, the sexual element of the film still rose above base pornography for me, though I expect a lot of people might not see it that way. If 9 Songs is porn, it's porn the way it ought to be - driven by good music instead of cheesy "bonk-chicka-chicka-boink-boink" electronica, with the kind of lingering, erotic shots on naked body parts that draw you into the film and its sexuality, rather than leaving you feeling as it you'd accidentally stumbled into a slightly embarrassing, stereotypical frat-boy sexual encounter.

Winterbottom uses the sex scenes, as much as the music, to illustrate the arc of the relationship between Matt and Lisa. As the film progresses we see more and more closeups of genitals rather than lingering, intimate shots, and Lisa starts to move emotionally away from Matt, by turning her attentions to a female stripper giving her a lap dance and her vibrators. She seems to be pulling away, showing Matt she doesn't need him for her sexual satisfaction - or perhaps, that he alone is not enough to satisfy her.

The nine songs of the title didn't work quite as well as I would have hoped, in spite of my fondness for many of the bands: Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Dandy Warhols, The Von Bondies, Super Furry Animals, Franz Ferdinand, Elbow, and Primal Scream, all contributed songs to the film, and Michael Nyman offers a lovely piano solo from his 60th birthday celebration.

As a series of stand-alone concert scenes, the music bits would have been fine - they were entertaining enough musically -  but as an element telling us something about the story, this idea doesn't work so well. Most of these bands favor the kind of loud, distorted, yelling-into-the-mike style of music much favored by the hipster crowd, and this type of music doesn't really lend itself well to being able to comprehensible; thus, it's hard to decipher what a given song is supposed to contribute to the storyline.

The songs are supposed to guide us along the film's narrative arc, as Matt's relationship with Lisa evolves, devolves, and eventually disintegrates. You really almost need to be a fan of all these bands, and know the songs they are playing and what the lyrics say, to be able to get anything out of the concert pieces other than just enjoying the sound of the music. In that sense, 9 Songs is really more an ode to these great bands interspersed with hot sex, or an ode to hot sex interspesed with music videos, than a narrative film in any but the loosest experimental sense. And yet, I liked it, and overall the film worked for me.

The element of the film I liked least, actually, was Lisa. In spite of an able and sexually enthusiastic performance by Margo Stilley, she was just a really unlikable character, and not because she was a woman who unabashedly liked sex - we need more movies with strong, unapologetically sexual female protagonists - but because she just really came across as a one-dimensional bitch. In between telling Matt to "pay attention to me" (the girl's neediness to be noticed and focused on bordered on the neurotic), she was saying mean things to Matt out of the blue ("Those glasses are ugly. Those glasses look stupid.") and deflecting his earnest attempts to move the relationship along.

Personally, I would have rather seen her just say at the beginning of the film, "Look, Matt, I'm only here in London for a year, and I'm just looking for someone to have lots of really hot sex with while I'm here. No ties, no relationship, just lots of steamy-hot bonking. Sound good?" Instead, she manipulates and holds onto Matt by appealing to his libido, ultimately telling the poor guy on his birthday weekend that she's going back to America.

Other than that minor complaint, however, I thought 9 Songs was an interesting attempt at being experimental and pushing the boundaries of sex as art. Go to 9 Songs looking for a strong story line and fascinating character development and you'll likely leave disappointed. If you go to it looking to see lots of well-done, very erotic sex interspersed with some great music, you'll likely have a good time. Bring a date, then go home after and analyze the, er, finer points of the film.