9 Songs

A couple meet at a gig and go to 8 more, hence the title. It's real footage of real gigs although one is a Michael Nyman concert and I'm not sure he sings at all so it ought to have been called 8 Songs and a Tune.

The question the film poses is "When is a porno not a porno"? The answer of course is when it is an arty film. This is the most explicit film the BBFC have passed for general certification and explicit it certainly is. However, through the multitude of bedroom antics so clearly illustrated, a sense of the imbalance of the pair's relationship develops as man falls in love and woman uses him for sex. This use of sex scenes to progress the narrative and express the nature of a relationship is presumably what the BBFC are looking for when doling out the 18s and Xs. Ang Lee used similarly explicit scenes in Lust, Caution with great effect but also much protest. It also better illustrated the second quality presumably requsted for standard certification. The sex scenes aren't obviously titillating. In fact those in 9 Songs feel more like excerpts from a How To Make Love DVD.

So then, with a collection of gigs and shags developing characters and telling a story we must question whether I cared. Ultimately the answer is not really. A tale of making and breaking of a relationship told with tenderness was unexpected but lacked any real interest by focussing so much on how much sex could be got away with.