9 songs - Unrated Full Uncut Version

This film is not a story, and to the extent it has a plot, you know all of what you need to know in the first minute of the movie. Hence if you are looking for a love STORY, skip this film. Rather it's a portrait (viewed after the fact) of a brief passionate relationship between a glaciologist and an American drifter. The whole movie consists of a series of flashbacks covering sex, a little in the way of drugs, and a lot of music, mostly rock and roll. At the same time the movie has a tenderness and artistry that well exceeded my expectations. This is not a porno flick (despite the real sex acts on film). Although the acting is very good, what makes the movie come alive and touch the viewer is the camera-work and editing. The flashbacks of the sex scenes are brief, like recollections in real life, and they are interspersed with other memories and music, and the occasional flash to the present, where Matt is working in Antarctica. The music (including a haunting piano solo commissioned for a different film but reused here to great effect) lends a set of additional contrasts which add depth to the movie. As a note about the music. The nine rock concerts contrast with the Michael Nyman piano pieces, particularly "Debbie" (originally written for Wonderland ). Hint: If you want to get the Nyman music for this film, get this album: Wonderland 1999 Film Score . Nyman's music adds a great deal of tenderness and humanity to what might otherwise be just a steamy set of sex scenes. If you are not offended by the subject matter or object to seeing actors perform real sex acts on film, I'd recommend suspending your idea of what a movie should be and watching this as it is intended to be watched, as a beautiful portrait of a memory of passion.

Some might consider this movie prurient, while to others it will seem sweetly nostalgic. Anyone who is looking at this review will already know that 9 Songs is famed for its full-on sex scenes. Some, however, will not be aware that it really is about the nature of memory and the waking-up to ordinary life's intangible fleeting beauty. The main character is a British glaciologist through whose eyes, metaphorically, one "remembers" a relationship a lovely, egotistical, careless, charming, and crazy woman, not unlike the young women young men meet from time to time and with whom men try (unsuccessfully) to have a temporally enduring relationship. Matt (Kieran O'Brien) is an ugly-handsome winsome working-class bloke made good in Tony Blair's New Britain. Lisa (Margot Stilley)is an American, obviously from what is called a "good family", curvaceously slim, statuesque (about two inches taller than Matt), educated, and unserious about both her relationship with Matt and her job. As for her "job", though we don't see much of it at all, it's obviously just a time-marking "playing about with typewriters and latchkeys and calling it work", as EM Forster called the occupations of upper middle class twenty-somethings who receive regular checks from the family back home. She a good-looking 21 year old American woman in London with time on her hands, and a liking for men. Glaciology is a key thematic element in 9 Songs. Antarctica is a metaphor for one's memory. The snow laid down in the center of the continent becomes ice, trapping bubbles of air inside it. Those bubbles are the continent's "memory" of the weather on a certain day, a certain year. As more and more ice is laid down at the center, the earlier deposits move inecluctably toward the sea, there to be "calved" become bergs, and finally melt, leaving no trace behind. Apart from Antarctica, there's not a lot more than performances by bands like the Dandy Warhols, Super Furry Animals, and so forth. Nine songs sung in really fun-looking London venues, to be exact, and, of course, the famous scenes of the couple making love. The lovemaking is more inferred than depicted ofttimes, but taken as a whole one would doubt that there is even a square centimetre of the protagonists' anatomies that is not unmistakably displayed in all its glory for all the world to see in this movie. The sex, for the most part, has a quality of warmly relational authenticity that anyone could recognize as very distinct from exploitative porn. As a result, the viewer seldom feels terribly voyeuristic, but rather the director seeks for the viewer to experience a reflective nostalgia, redolent of times past - which is, of course, a function of memory. HOWEVER, the title of the film does not, I think, refer merely to the "songs" sung by the bands. My own theory is that the auteur, Michael Winterbottom, is alluding to the Chinese 13th century Yuan Dynasty cycle of poems, The Nine Songs, which is in many respects about the Shamanic quest. "Similar to the traditional shaman of Siberia, Central Asia and the Arctic, the wu enters into a trance state in performing ceremonies. However, unlike his northern counterparts, the Chinese shaman enters into a fleeting love relationship with the God (or Goddess)." [taken from Zekeriyah's excellent review of the book of the same name on this site] You see, this film is not only about memory, and what a guy remembers about a relationship with a woman he has loved (which guys being who they are, is mostly the perceived high points, like going to shows and making love), but 9 Songs also seems to be an extended metaphor for the Shamanic quest, which in the end requires union with the mysterious Beloved other, the mythological dakini, who both enlivens and kills her lover simultaneously and then simply disappears into the sky, and leaves behind (there's that word, memory, again) as her gift a precious, elusive realization of the ugly-beautiful reality of things-as-they-are. With that in mind, see this movie. It's not really about sex.

There were a few films in the 70's that used adult content in main-stream cinema thinking that a majority would accept it. Obviously, it never took off. 9 songs uses its adult content in a similar way. There are several hard core scenes, in this love story. Personally, I think it gives the film a certian... real-ness. Theres certain things in here that are tough to put together. Antartica, (did'nt get it.. symbolizes the isolation of the relationship..?? perhaps) The songs.. (dont see what if anything they mean here... ??..why these songs?) Its an enigmatic film. I watched it (short c.a. 1 hr & change), thought about it, then watched the director & actors interview(s). I think I gave it way more credit than it deserved. They wernt going for any of the concepts I thought they were going for. Nevertheless. A good film, even if it was an accident. 4.5 stars

Movie about a couple who meet at a concert and have instead chemistry in the U.K.. They go home together and sleep together and go to concerts together. The girl is from the U.S. and the guy from the U.K. and they have fling for about a year before the girl has to leave the U.K.. The sex scenes are real, not simulated like in most movies. This sets it apart from other movies. The actors have good chemistry and agreed to the sex scenes. Plenty of extras on the DVD including interviews and concert footage of the 9 independent rock bands songs from which this movie is titled from. The sex scenes are uncut and shown in its entirety, unlike the Unrated Edited version where some sex scenes were cut or masked by a bright light or zoomed in above the waist like softcore adult movies on cable tv. I have both versions but only recommend this version.

なにがでかいし

Michael Winterbottom's '9 Songs' is one of the most realistic movies ever made about sex. Using real concert footage of bands such as Franz Ferdinand, we go in to the under-lit lounge, kitchen, and bedroom of a couple called Lisa and Matt. They have sex. They go to another concert. They have sex. They go to another live concert. There is no plot. There is no story. There is no real attempt at other elements that make up a conventionally told story. Any other director would not have got away with a movie such as '9 Songs.' But this is a success because Margo Stilley and Kieran O'Brien bring a brand of realism that is helplessly erotic! If you love the music of bands such as The Dandy Warhols, Primal Scream, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and Super Furry Animals, then you would love the concert footage alone. But, if these bands mean nothing to you, then you are unlikely to warm to '9 Songs.' Also, if you want your movies about sex to have a fantasy element, then this is certainly not for you. The great strength of this film lies in Winterbottom's depiction of realism within our sex lives. If you are looking for a classy evening with your boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, or husband, then '9 Songs' has to be a guaranteed hit in your bedroom! In real life, there is little glamour in sex. In real life, even the most stable relationship can become predictable and listless. However, one can still experience beauty within the mundane aspects of a long-term relationship. That's why '9 Songs' is a lovely poem about a 'normal' relationship. Not all of us can be the Christian Grey of the E.L.James trilogy. However, one CAN find so much fun and joy within the ordinary setting of a regular house or apartment. '9 Songs' is the opposite of a fantasy. It reminds us that realism can be more enjoyable than any daydream.

Claustrofobico e angosciante..intenso. Margo Stilley è bellissima bravissima e terribilmente conturbante. Vi sfido a non guardarlo... in compagnia!Eh eh eh

Ein gut gemachter,sehr erotischer Film. Würde von mir eine fünf Sternbewertung erhalten,wenn eine deutsche Tonspur vorhanden wäre. Liebe Grüße. Helmut ,

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