Director: Michael Winterbottom, 2004
Stars: Kieran O’Brien, Margo Stilley
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Given its billing as the most sexually explicit British mainstream film yet released, you expect 9 Songs to play like Sodom and Gomorrah with tasteful lighting. But, though they feature erections, ejaculation and oral sex, the scenes between O’Brien’s scientist and Stilley’s egocentric American (above) are tame in comparison with the average porn flick. And, as the censorship expert Tom Dewe Matthews points out in a fascinating DVD interview, Winterbottom generally cuts away mid-bonk. This brand of coitus interruptus is light years away from pornography’s unflinching stare, and helped his film to escape the censor’s scissors.
The director certainly deserves recognition for his use of sex as a manifestation of emotional discovery, affection, petulance and reconciliation. Less admirable are his couple’s excruciatingly banal exchanges of dialogue and the gimmicky use of live gig footage to bookend each chapter in their relationship.
In the end, there’s no doubt that 9 Songs is both a groundbreaking film and a frustratingly flawed one.
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DVD extras Interviews with Winterbottom, O’Brien, Stilley and Matthews; option to view the gigs only; trailers.
Ed Potton