cwarne_uk

This much vaunted French horror movie turns out to be a total mess, suitable only for those who are ashamed of liking gore movies and so want (very) juvenile intellectualism thrown into the mix to justify watching them. Not exactly ground breaking, for instance the objects of our gaze are scantily clad nubile young women having bad things done to them(there is an attempted justification for this later on - it is like much else of the plot infantile). The film has a strange structure - the first part is Haute Tension without the tension; this is done reasonably well but is full of clichés (do bodies really fly yards through the air when being hit by bullets? The law of conservation of momentum holds the answer and it ain't whats on view here), still it will appeal to fans of the colour red who don't mind watching killers cry endlessly (interminably is much the more accurate word here), rather than laugh demoniacally or eat their victims. At half way there is a sudden change of pace and tone, all of a sudden the maker is attempting to make Hellraiser as it would have been made by the great Danish filmmaker Dreyer. Of course it lacks the kinky fun of Hellraiser to say nothing of the spiritual charge of the great Dane. In fact the second part comes out much closer to Hostel than any of it's lofty aims; Hostel, that is, without the cheap laughs or bad acting, which all means it is a lot less fun than Hostel but takes itself so seriously that the immature will think it a work of art. BTW the level of gore in this movie was not as high as Inside - still the best of recent French horror.

I have to state at the outset that I lasted 30 minutes with this film. Is it it still fair to comment on it. I would say yes, as the inability to finish a film is the most serious comment of all on it. It was not boredom that stopped me watching but the sheer stupid, juvenile imbecility of what had transpired. Perhaps if I had stayed with it to the bitter end there may have been some great revelation but frankly I don't care. Anti-materialistic in the most idiotic way, this is basically a masturbatory fantasy for teenage boys. If you think that a wife will go off with a lad half her age who breaks into her house this is the film for you (all a battered wife needs is a nice boy!). On the plus side much of this is virtually silent, on the minus side it features a truly horrible bit of Korean MOR. I have watched a fair few Korean films in recent years - I'm a sucker for hype - and most of them have been pretty worthless, this film is certainly is down to that standard (the only two I would wholeheartedly recommend being "Untold Scandal" and "Memories Of Murder"). It does not even have the benefit of being truly odd like the similarly inept films of Park Chan-wook.

Contrary to the rubbish spouted by many real sex has been a feature of films almost since the medium was invented. The pornography industry packages it's sex in flimsy plots and bad acting, knowing that the potential audience is little interested in them. With "9 Songs" Michael Winterbottom has made a film that has all of the three features of classic pornography - a plot that is so thin it constantly threatens to disappear, acting (and improvisation) of a truly laughable nature (this is not the sort of film that actors with talent or a reputation would appear in), and plenty of uns(t)imulated coupling. Does that make it pornography? Probably not since porn is made with the honest and (dis)reputable intent of getting it's male audience to exercise their right hands, whereas the intent of Winterbottom's mess is anybody's guess. The rash of supposed "art" films with explicit sex is well known over recent years. Filmmakers will witter on about reality and honesty but I suspect the old adage that sex sells is more applicable. Almost without exception the films have been pretty dire (a lot of uber-pretentious French twaddle comes to mind) and "9 Songs" is no exception. Much like violence, hardcore sex in films is done best by the exploitation industry, they at least have an honest attitude to their product.