Day 138: 9 Songs

"Exploring the Antarctic is like exploring space. You enter a void, thousands of miles, with no people, no animals, no plants. You're isolated in a vast, empty continent. Claustrophobia and agoraphobia in the same place, like two people in a bed."

9 Songs probably won't ever be critically acclaimed classic like other small low-budget indie flicks. It currently has a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Nevertheless, it'll always be a classic in some sense. It's ability to spark debate on the role sexuality plays in cinema is a notable one. There certainly is a debate on what separates pornography from other more risqué editions of film. This is what makes 9 Songs so interesting. The film is more or less, about sex. There really isn't much of a plot and there really isn't much dialog either. There's not much character development, and there's not much acting either. Yet, I think it's one of the most brilliant things I've ever seen. And I'm almost certain that you will disagree with me completely.
 
9 Songs demonstrates, in a few ways, why independent cinema that pushes the boundary when it comes to sex shouldn't be considered pornography. The main reason for this is that ultimately in a pornography, you don't care about your characters—barring the event that you're some type of weird creep that has an binding affection towards Sasha Grey. Of course, whether or not you care about the characters in 9 Songs will be completely up to you, but I did. There was a particular scene where the character, Matt, is at the beach with his girlfriend, Lisa. Now they're pretty much bundled up because of the winter but there's a nice moment when Matt tells her that if he goes in and swims it means that he loves her. She's completely unimpressed by this remark. And so, immediately he strips down and runs in. Moments like that aren't common in porn—well if someone happens to stumble upon this years from now and I'm being considered for an important position/etc. I have never seen porn in my entire life. I'm writing this solely from research publications and audio-visual material. 

9 Songs is a narrative that moves as such: at the beginning the main character, Matt, is a climatologist beginning an expedition in Antarctica. During this he recalls his relationship with an American girl named Lisa. During these bouts of nostalgia there are nine songs that are placed throughout the film in between the drama. The nine songs are:

• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Whatever Happened to My Rock and Roll"
• The Von Bondies, "C'mon, C'mon""
• Elbow, "Fallen Angel"
• Primal Scream, "Movin' On Up"
• Dandy Warhols, "You Were the Last High"
• Super Furry Animals, "Slow Life"
• Franz Ferdinand, "Jacqueline"
• Michael Nyman, "Debbie"
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, "Love Burns"

In between these songs are a variety of short exchanges of dialog, scenes of romantic trips, and very intimate scenes of sex. It's clear, and it's been reported, that much of the sexual acts in the film are not simulated. But it seems like at least some of them are. The line is blurred however. Some of the acts are just plain graphic as well. But it suits the purpose of the film. As opposed to porn which seeks to convert sex into this weird acrobatic dance of lust, this film shows them having sex because, that's what their relationship primarily consisted of. Sex here is treated with the same flair as the two of them dancing and taking cocaine. This is in stark contrast to mainstream cinema where the sex scene is set apart from the rest of the film by adding slow-motion effects, or a romantic score. 

The distinction between this and pornography also came to my mind yesterday when I was in the bookstore and I picked up this book about Radiohead and how their music related to philosophy. I'm a big Radiohead fan so I took a look at it and since I couldn't read the whole book in Barnes & Noble, I figure I'll just check out the shortest essay. The last chapter is about In Rainbows. The writer makes the assertion that the album is mostly about love and sex. While I unfortunately was unable to complete the essay due to the ensued argument I ended up getting into with a Conservative (...yeah, I know), I did get far enough to read about Jean Baudrillard. I've come across him before but I've never had a chance to read him thoroughly. But here's one of the quote that the author of the aforementioned essay included:

The only phantasy in pornography, if there is one, is thus not a phantasy of sex, but of the real, and its absorption into something other than the real, the hyperreal. Pornographic voyeurism is not a sexual voyeurism, but a voyeurism of representation and its perdition, a dizziness born of the loss of the scene and the irruption of the obscene. ... Hyperrealism is not surrealism, it is a vision that hunts down seduction by means of visibility. One "gives you more." This is already true of colour in film or television. One gives you so much - colour, lustre, sex, all in high fidelity; and with all the accents (that's life!) - that you have nothing to add, that is to say, nothing to give in exchange. Absolute repression: by giving you a little too much one takes away everything.

9 Songs is clearly not the hyperreal. This brand of cinema only attempts to recreate the real. With the way the film is shot, too much is not revealed. There exists no excess. The depiction of sex here should be accepted like the violence in The Passion of the Christ which is also there for a purpose. The sex in 9 Songs helps provide ample fodder to support the relationship of the two main characters. The sex is also fully of more intimacy than plain Henry Miller-erotica, and even during it's kinkiest and most graphic of moments, it's a far cry from excess and porn. But for some reason there exists some acceptance for violence on screen but not sex. That's odd isn't it?