Winterbottom mixes crowd surfing with muff diving.
Juxtaposing the pure raw energy found in the U.K music scene with the heart pounding, erection-giving thrills found in a newly created relationship, – Michael Winterbottom’s 65-minute rated-R experiment comes across as an attention-getting venture that merely fills the temporary void in-between the director’s more serious efforts of 24 Hour Party People and Code 46. Structured as a couple’s short-lived personal travelogue, 9 Songs is the sort of expose that takes the viewer through the evolution of a relationship strictly by what happens behind bedroom doors. With a variation of his-and-her exchanges of pleasure and one amusing bath tub stroke session – Winterbottom might up the ante in explicit terms but the story-less look at the sexual play from first-name-only Matt (Kieran O’Brien) and Lisa (Margo Stilley) hardly connects with the sectioned-off, bootleg ugly footage from headlining acts from the U.K. Despite the close-up nature of the film, this grainy, digitally-shot, jump-cut friendly short has very little going for it – the unscripted nature of the script and the obsolete character development makes this a paltry exercise. Ultimately fans of the British director will find that 9 Songs has very little to get off on.
