Director: Michael Winterbottom
Country of origin and year: United Kingdom, 2004
Language: English
Subtitles: Spanish (USA R1)
Bonus Features subtitled?: no

"9 Songs" is an interesting piece of work, depicting the relationship between Matt and Lisa over the period of one year. Matt is a scientist who studies the glaciers of the South Pole, and Lisa is an American who is on holiday in the UK. They meet at a concert, and become engaged in a beautiful relationship full of love and sex. Granted, it is only going to be a short term relationship, since Lisa will one day return to the States. As the title shows, there are nine songs throughout the film that complements the love-making between the couple. Obviously, this part of the film will not appeal to the Deaf audience, as I have fast forwarded through the music clips of the film.

The explicit showcasing of the love making between the couple begins with a vague shooting, and as the film progresses, showing overt sexual actions such as cunnilingus, fellatio, full peneration, etc... Yet, the movie does not exhibit an ambience of a porno video. The scenes are beautifully filmed, and everything seems to blend together well. The music represents where they met, the ordinary conversations between the couple, sexual performances, and drugs are parts of the everyday life of a couple, and we view it like a voyeur, listening into their lives. The characters are not "beautiful" eye candies; the woman is small breasted, and the man is a bit on the hairy side.Nevertheless, they are still pleasing to look at, and everything seems so real, and it is easy for us to relate to them. For this reason, the British censors decided to give them an equivalent of a R rating despite the pronounced sexual actions.

I definitely recommend for anyone to watch this, but if you are the type to be bothered by sex, then this is not for you. This film relies highly on personal taste. I give this film 3 stars, mostly because of the lack of understanding of the musical video clips in between, and also due to the lack of English subtitles. I had to rely on the Spanish subtitles to understand what was being said, but I don't think that all Deaf people would be fortunate enough to know Spanish to watch this film. Also, since I am gay, I was not sure if I was going to like this film, but I was glad to have seen this film nevertheless.