I keep watching movies I find interesting then not writing about them. Then I forget the specific things I liked about them in the first place. These two films are hardly similar, but they do treat sex and nudity in a frank way, and I enjoyed both of them, though I’d hardly call either of them great.
M. Winterbottom cranks out the films. He’s directed five since the very enjoyable 24 Hour Party People , but this one had sex – AND bands, so it got my attention. It’s a fairly simple exercise; alternating scenes between crowded London rock concerts (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Franz Ferdinand, Primal Scream) and realtionship scenes which consist of the two characters fucking. Or fighting. It doesn’t try to delve deeply into what brings them together or takes them apart, and I was ok with that. In fact, the film gets weak when the guy’s voiceover tries to tie in his career as a glacier geologist into the relationship. There’s not a lot of dialogue and what’s there isn’t forced or illuminating. The sex is real – as the actors are a couple, and while it wasn’t filmed like pornography, it wasn’t overly arty or coy either. I quite liked this one.
Young Adam has more ambition, based as it is on a cult novel with big name actors (Ewen McGregor and Tilda Swinton). This film also had voiceover, and according to the DVD it was cut out entirely. Rightly so. It didn’t need it. The motivations of McGregor’s character are farily clear, though the time jumping forces you to pay attention to what’s going on. I’m generally against the time-jumping thing in movies now: It’s been way overdone (Everything Tarntino did has been way overdone) but it’s effective here.
We’ve seen Ewen’s cock before – in Pillow Book – and we see it here again – this time set in 1920s(?) Scotland, mostly on a barge with well-filmed filth. There’s a great sense of inevitability of events, one after another, that no one seems able to put a stop to; they just keep happening. It could be sex, or it could be standing by while an innocent man dies, or it could be just letting the days slip by until all your dreams and plans seem silly and unattainable.
Recommends for both of these. Maybe I was being particularly charitable – or perhaps the appearance of so many boobies lulled me into a good mood, but I found these to be at least more interesting than the typical American fare either big or indie – or even the typical English film for that matter.
I’ve seen both and while grey and grungy I admired Young Adam more than I liked it. As for Nine Songs, I found this film to be virtually unwatchable. I’ve had sex (a couple of times) and while there were naked bodies up on the screen, I remember little to no actual penetration and no erect penis (maybe I fell asleep). I guess I felt as if the male actor was expected to do less onscreen than his female counterpart and that seemed to be bad form (the film never lived up the minimal hype). Still, I like Winterbottom a lot and think In This World to be a really fine film. Tristram Shandy starts up here on March 10 and I’m excited to see it.