Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs has the feel of something that wants to stretch the boundaries of cinema, to shatter conventional notions of form. The film is unabashedly experimental. But it's also unbearably tedious, in a way that movies only are when the director is trying something new that doesn't work. There's nothing more tiresome than a daring formal experiment that falls apart. Winterbottom's film charges headlong into new territory, but quickly proves itself bereft of interest. It offers nothing but form; there are no characters to get behind, no ideas to chew on, no visuals to gape at. It's got a certain energy, and there's lots of sex in it, but the scenes never add up to anything. The formal experimentation leads Winterbottom into a cul-de-sac, and all he can think to do is circle around and around.
The narrative (such as it is) involves a pair of young people, English scientist Matt (Kieran O'Brien) and American student Lisa (Margo Stilley), who spend the movie going to concerts, having somewhat kinky sex and generally acting like hip European film characters (they're comfortable with their clothes off in other words, and snorting coke to them is merely part of normal recreation). Matt describes Lisa as being, "beautiful, egotistical, careless and crazy," and what we see of her would tend to confirm this. She's played by Margo Stilley, who might give Maggie Gyllenhaal a run for her money as everyone's favorite alluring indie-charmer, were it not for the fact that she has no talent whatsoever. Winterbottom has apparently chosen Stilley for her androgynous sensuality, her litheness, and her bedroom eyes; it's hard to figure what else he might've seen in her, or what he would've conceived her character to be had he been the least bit interested in character. Stilley and O'Brien spend their scenes tying each other up in bed, engaging in silly play-acting sex-games, and performing acts upon each other the likes of which one does not normally see outside of hard-core porn. Of course it's not Winterbottom's intent to shock us; Winterbottom is far beyond employing explicit sex merely for its shock-value. The film seeks to be frank about the nature of Matt and Lisa's relationship, which is almost entirely about physical intercourse, with rock music, drugs and inane patter rounding out the top four. One is left to wonder, since Winterbottom is so busy being deliberately enigmatic (he throws in some helicopter shots of an Antarctic wasteland from time-to-time, maybe meaning to evoke the mystery of the universe, maybe because he had the footage sitting around and couldn't think of anything better to do with it), if Matt and Lisa are actually meant to be seen as a pair of shallow twits who can only express themselves sexually, and have no thoughts or feelings of any value otherwise. The performances do little to ameliorate our confusion as to the director's intent. Stilley is lovely and palpably erotic but vapid, and O'Brien just comes off like a generic scruffy Euro-film hero, a refugee from some British gangster movie or a thriller about a murderer with amnesia.
Winterbottom may be sure about what he's doing, but conveys only a weak sense of messing around with form, of trying stuff just for the sake of trying it. The concert footage (the narrative is literally built around nine songs), featuring ultra-cool bands like The Von Bondies, Franz Ferdinand and The Dandy Warhols (ultra-coolness being part of the film's agenda), is spliced into the film seemingly at random, there being no continuity for these scenes to either punctuate or disrupt. The performances are filmed in a rather shoddy way; the cameras are kept pretty far from the stage, and though the songs are generally good (and sound fantastic in 5.1 DTS), you don't get much sense of the personalities of the band members, and feel the footage just blending into the general irrelevance. The film amounts to a repeating cycle: the characters have sex, they go to a concert, we look at some ice, the narrator says something pseudo-profound, the characters have sex, etc., There would be nothing wrong with this had Winterbottom found ways to change up the rhythm, or cause the energy to escalate, but he does neither of these things. He doesn't have more than a couple of tricks up his sleeve, and he quickly uses them up. It's a poor magician who expects us to be intrigued by the same rabbit being pulled time-and-again from the same hat.
The narrative (such as it is) involves a pair of young people, English scientist Matt (Kieran O'Brien) and American student Lisa (Margo Stilley), who spend the movie going to concerts, having somewhat kinky sex and generally acting like hip European film characters (they're comfortable with their clothes off in other words, and snorting coke to them is merely part of normal recreation). Matt describes Lisa as being, "beautiful, egotistical, careless and crazy," and what we see of her would tend to confirm this. She's played by Margo Stilley, who might give Maggie Gyllenhaal a run for her money as everyone's favorite alluring indie-charmer, were it not for the fact that she has no talent whatsoever. Winterbottom has apparently chosen Stilley for her androgynous sensuality, her litheness, and her bedroom eyes; it's hard to figure what else he might've seen in her, or what he would've conceived her character to be had he been the least bit interested in character. Stilley and O'Brien spend their scenes tying each other up in bed, engaging in silly play-acting sex-games, and performing acts upon each other the likes of which one does not normally see outside of hard-core porn. Of course it's not Winterbottom's intent to shock us; Winterbottom is far beyond employing explicit sex merely for its shock-value. The film seeks to be frank about the nature of Matt and Lisa's relationship, which is almost entirely about physical intercourse, with rock music, drugs and inane patter rounding out the top four. One is left to wonder, since Winterbottom is so busy being deliberately enigmatic (he throws in some helicopter shots of an Antarctic wasteland from time-to-time, maybe meaning to evoke the mystery of the universe, maybe because he had the footage sitting around and couldn't think of anything better to do with it), if Matt and Lisa are actually meant to be seen as a pair of shallow twits who can only express themselves sexually, and have no thoughts or feelings of any value otherwise. The performances do little to ameliorate our confusion as to the director's intent. Stilley is lovely and palpably erotic but vapid, and O'Brien just comes off like a generic scruffy Euro-film hero, a refugee from some British gangster movie or a thriller about a murderer with amnesia.
Winterbottom may be sure about what he's doing, but conveys only a weak sense of messing around with form, of trying stuff just for the sake of trying it. The concert footage (the narrative is literally built around nine songs), featuring ultra-cool bands like The Von Bondies, Franz Ferdinand and The Dandy Warhols (ultra-coolness being part of the film's agenda), is spliced into the film seemingly at random, there being no continuity for these scenes to either punctuate or disrupt. The performances are filmed in a rather shoddy way; the cameras are kept pretty far from the stage, and though the songs are generally good (and sound fantastic in 5.1 DTS), you don't get much sense of the personalities of the band members, and feel the footage just blending into the general irrelevance. The film amounts to a repeating cycle: the characters have sex, they go to a concert, we look at some ice, the narrator says something pseudo-profound, the characters have sex, etc., There would be nothing wrong with this had Winterbottom found ways to change up the rhythm, or cause the energy to escalate, but he does neither of these things. He doesn't have more than a couple of tricks up his sleeve, and he quickly uses them up. It's a poor magician who expects us to be intrigued by the same rabbit being pulled time-and-again from the same hat.