9 Songs

    9 Songs
    2004

    Synopsis

    Matt, a young glaciologist, soars across the vast, silent, icebound immensities of the South Pole as he recalls his love affair with Lisa. They meet at a mobbed rock concert in a vast music hall - London's Brixton Academy. They are in bed at night's end. Together, over a period of several months, they pursue a mutual sexual passion whose inevitable stages unfold in counterpoint to nine live-concert songs.

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    Cast

    • Kieran O'BrienMatt
    • Margo StilleyLisa
    • Courtney Taylor-TaylorHimself - The Dandy Warhols (uncredited)
    • Alex KapranosHimself - Franz Ferdinand (uncredited)
    • Guy GarveyHimself - Elbow (uncredited)
    • Robert Levon BeenHimself - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (uncredited)
    • Peter HayesHimself - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (uncredited)
    • Gruff RhysHimself - Super Furry Animals (uncredited)
    • Jason StollsteimerHimself - The Von Bondies (uncredited)
    • Marcie BolenHerself - The Von Bondies (uncredited)

    Recommendations

    • 70

      Variety

      A touching, often poetic, sometimes achingly real snapshot of a brief encounter related almost entirely through the bedroom.
    • 70

      The New York Times

      9 Songs, for all its failed ambitions and its tinge of sexism, is lovely to watch.
    • 63

      New York Daily News

      Michael Winterbottom nakedly goes where no "respectable" director has gone before - to sex and beyond! His provocative 9 Songs is the first movie by a director of Winterbottom's standing to depict real, uncensored sex between its lead actors.
    • 63

      New York Post

      The film accurately reminds you, if you need reminding, what it's like to have your mind hijacked by somebody's body.
    • 60

      TV Guide Magazine

      Members of what used to be referred to euphemistically as the "raincoat crowd," will probably enjoy Winterbottom's experiment more than most.
    • 50

      Village Voice

      Winterbottom never provides the empathic connective tissue we expect. Love it or not, 9 Songs amounts to a common human rite fastidiously caught in amber, giving off no heat or joy but crystallized for the future.
    • 50

      Entertainment Weekly

      Nobody will go to see Michael Winterbottom's sexually explicit, novelty-act drama - a naughty peep show for sobersides, disguised as a nature documentary - to hear the songs; everyone will go to see the shagging, which occupies the majority of the screen time.
    • 40

      Film Threat

      As 9 Songs played out for sixty-nine (count ‘em!) minutes, I started to find myself wishing they would just end the interminable, deliberately underlit, sex scenes and get back to those really hot pics of Antarctica.

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