9 Songs

To put it simply: 9 Songs is a fuck and music film. This simplicity, this inspired lack of complexity, is certainly the foundation of the film. One of the two protagonists, Matt (Kieran O’Brien), looks back on a tempestuous relationship with Lisa (Margo Stilley) from Antarctica, where he works as a glacial expert. Lisa was an American student visiting London and Matt met her during a concert of the hip band Black Rebel Motorcycle at Brixton Academy. These are not superfluous details, because the film will repeatedly return to Brixton Academy. Nine times, to be precise, to record the nine songs from the title. Matt and Lisa fall head over heels in love and enjoy their infatuation, their sexual attraction, to the fullest. Winterbottom is an unusual director. He is very productive and seems to tackle a new genre for each new film. Or, such as here, to invent a new genre. In 9 Songs, he does at least two things that are unusual in feature films: he shows the sex scenes in detail and at length (something that usually only happens in porn) and he repeatedly shows a whole song at the concerts attended by Matt and Lisa (which usually only happens in concert documentaries or rockumentaries). For the lovers of modern rock music, here are the bands, far from no-names: The Von Bondies, Elbow, Primal Scream, The Dandy Warhols, Super Furry Animals, Franz Ferdinand, Michael Nyman. (GjZ)