The Bottom Line
Michael Winterbottom pushes boundaries with a film that uses raw rock'n roll live footage and unsimulated sex for a tender love story that could not bet told any other way.
Pros
- A tender love story
- Unsimulated sex brings rare honesty to screen
- Excellent, raw footage of English band scene
- Wonderful performance by newcomer Margo Stilley
Cons
- Not a titilating experience (if that's what you were hoping for)
Description
- Directed by Michael Winterbottom
- Starring Kieran O'Brien, Margot Stilley
- Bands: The Dandy Warhols, Super Furry Animals, Primal Scream, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and more
- Special features include production interviews with Winterbottom, O'Brien, and Stilley.
- Behind the scenes featurette and music videos.
Guide Review - 9 Songs - DVD Unrated Full Uncut Version
Michael Winterbottom's latest experiment "9 Songs" mixes live concert footage with real sex. Already a scandal as "the most explicit film in British film history," it luxuriates in stolen moments of intimacy between Lisa, a young American (Margo Stilley) and Matt, an English glaciologist (Kieran O'Brien.)
"9 Songs" is a story that can't be told without radical frankness. The couple's story–-the passion, the power-plays, the disenchantment, all of their best and worst moments together--happens in bed. For the film to work (which it does), the sex has to be as real as the moments that come after: "I need to take a shower," Want some coffee?" and some loose, naked dancing. Nothing is gratuitous because what's on screen is the story, a story of lust, longing, and disappointment so intimate that it couldn't be told any other way.
