On Friday, Emma and I saw Nine Lives:
Lauren: Nine Lives - what's your take?
Emma: Well, first we should point out this is the Rodrigo Garcia directed film not the Michael Winterbottom sexfest Nine Songs!
Lauren: True. Although I have seen 9 Songs, and it would be hard to confuse one with the other. But yes, that's a good distinction to make, because 9 Lives is kind of different from every other film anyway.
Emma: I haven't seen it, but I can imagine! I was hugely impressed with Garcia's Ten Tiny Love Stories, also in the "story collection" format, so I had high hope for this. They weren't completely fulfilled, although there are definitely many things to admire about Nine Lives. The actors' performances were flawless... Robin Wright Penn and Glenn Close stand out in my mind.
Lauren: Yes - I was stunned by how strong of an ensemble the director pulled together for the film's nine vignettes.
Emma: Absolutely. And it's a brave format to attempt.
Lauren: Robin Wright Penn was amazing. She's so underrated.
Emma: Very much so. That performance was so emotionally layered.
Lauren: It took me a while to get going with the format, and I caught it in stride towards the middle and really started to love it - and to be deeply intrigued by what main character might turn up in a tertiary way in the next story. But I felt the film tried to end in a very natural way but sort of cut off awkwardly, at least in my mind.
Emma: Certainly one of the compelling aspects of the film was the fact that the vignettes were self-contained, yet a minor character in one would turn up as a major character in another, and vice versa.
Lauren: I loved that in a film with so many 'death' references, there were none about birth. I found it intensely refreshing.
Emma: That's an amazing observation. Some of the deathly elements I kind of saw coming, but not in a bad way...
Lauren: I thought it was a very perhaps unintentionally Buddhist film. Because it emphasized the importance of the present, but also the connectivity between all living things.
Emma: Yes! There was an unusual atmosphere evoked, that very much pulled you into the "now".
Lauren: Do you have a favorite 'chapter'?
Emma: Hmm! Let me think…There were several I loved, but I would probably have to say “Camille”, with the two sisters played by Lisa Gay Hamilton and Sydney Tamiia Poitier. Even though throughout, I was thinking, Camille’s going to pull a gun out! This is what I meant when I said that deathly symbols were somewhat foreshadowed... But Hamilton was just breathtaking in that role.
Lauren: I loved the one between Diana and Damien [in the grocery store].
Emma: I nearly picked that one!
Lauren: Although it was an obvious standout as a stand-alone episode. So emotionally resonant and true - that experience that intense moments can explode out of the most mundane circumstances. And just drenched with life's complications.
Emma: It was really well done. Robin Wright Penn as a pregnant woman in a supermarket, running into her one true love...
Lauren: And a powerful but flawed connection between two people.
Emma: Yes! Damien was clearly a jerk, but Diana clearly knew that, but you could feel her horribly irresistible pull toward him.
Lauren: My second favorite chapter is related. The one where Holly Hunter's character and her slightly sadistic English boyfriend go and visit Damien and his wife in their new apartment. I HATED this one as it played out, because it made me feel so uncomfortable, but it's the one that I've thought the most about
since.
Emma: It was almost painful to watch! But so accurate.
Lauren: I liked how everything going on was in the subtext. First, you recognize Damien and think about what has just happened in the supermarket! And then as you mentioned - there are all these other layers unfolding at once. Holly Hunter was a good choice for that role.
Emma: I agree. The dynamic between her and her boyfriend was so true and ugly. What the script did so well was not divide characters into good and bad - you sympathized with and were horrified by elements in each character...
Lauren: Absolutely! Who did you think was the least flawed woman? One of the best things about this film is that each chapter is named after a woman but it's not a marginal or limiting film -- in the sense that it could be about women in a separatist way; all of these women were very much out and engaged in the world in every universal sense.
Emma: I'm intrigued by your question but I don't know if I can answer…Amy Brenneman was a strong and interesting character.
Lauren: Lorna!
Emma: Right! Going to her ex's wife's funeral, and shagging him out of pity.
Lauren: Very interesting. She kept questioning people in a way I found quite funny. Like every meaninglessly polite thing that came out of someone's mouth, she would say, “what do you mean?” It was as though she were almost autistic in her grasp of emotional nuance, and yet she had no trouble communicating with her deaf ex.
Emma: Exactly… But it was striking the way she tackled people's dislike of her, she didn't just deflect it or ignore it...
Lauren: Totally. That was genuinely interesting! Especially as there was so much hostility directed towards her.
Also, that was a very unsexy sex scene.
Emma: Yes! It was brave and unsentimental, which was compelling to watch. And you just knew precisely what her state of mind was as it was happening.
Lauren: Absolutely. It was like, "God, this is so not what I want."
Emma: Totally. And, “God, men are such babies.”
Lauren: I felt like the former sentiment was kind of a theme of the movie, (although the latter lament is occasionally applicable, too). Like when Sissy Spacek and Glenn Close both said to their respective daughters, "I am so tired."
Emma: Yes! This is what was so unusual about the movie - in a way its fragmented format was mildly unsatisfying, yet reflecting upon it afterwards yields all these profound subtexts... I had forgotten about Sissy Spacek's character until you mentioned it - it was a very nuanced performance. She was quite pitiful.
Lauren: Her character was so painful - so universal. That idea of being a woman that everyone depends on - wife, mother, etc. - and trying to communicate to her daughter that there is a world of possibility available to her in life.
Emma: God, yes, - you felt so keenly her claustrophobia, being trapped in a house with her disabled husband, and then when she turned up in her own story having an affair, you completely empathized, and wanted her to have this bit of joy.
Lauren: Right. But even that fantasy scenario can't transcend reality.
Emma: We were shown that unfortunately it can't.
Lauren: I liked how choppy the story was - how true to life, that you don't keep up with everyone and you don't learn how it ends. Although you can be certain that not every ending - the vast majority even - is a happy one.
Emma: Yes. I think you've put your finger on it: it reproduced life in way far more authentic than most films. Occasionally this was disconcerting, as we're so used to having structured narratives play out in a neat way for our reassurance, yet ultimately it was more emotionally satisfying - and
thought-provoking - than a straightforward, conventionally-directed film would be...
Lauren: Yes. Even though I had my reservations about certain aspects of the film while I was watching it, I overall found it to be startlingly original.
Emma: I concur wholeheartedly.
Lauren: Even with an all-star, 'name brand' kind of cast.
Emma: Yes, because the stars were there for their superior acting ability, not for their names.
Lauren: Absolutely. And the characters were so profoundly human, in the sense that they were all reaching towards happiness with arms wide open and blindly groping in the dark at the same time.
Emma: Definitely. So do we think the film as a whole deserves four peonies?
Lauren: I want to give it the maximum, five peonies - am I crazy, Emma?
Emma: Gasp! I don't know if I can comply with the max! It's not the best a film could possibly be. It's wonderful, but not perfect...
Lauren: I know. I liked that though, but I agree. An imperfect film - however accurately it reflects the nature of human existence - can only get four peonies.
Emma: How about four, but an acknowledgment that it received them easily....
Lauren: That is such a marvelous way to put it. Agreed.
Le Cineclub Rating:
(four out of a possible five peonies)
Previously: Dandelion, Going Shopping, Green Street Hooligans.
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