9 Songs is the story of an extra passionate relationship structured around nine concerts that the couple [Kieran O'Brien - Matt and Margot Stilley - Lisa] attend. At the first concert - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - they meet, pair up, go home together and have sex. Next time we meet them is at the next concert and they have sex after that one too. And we watch.

Actually, there's lots of sex. Lots and lots and lots. 9 Songs is easily the most explicit film I've ever seen in an Irish cinema. By about two million times. Nothing, I repeat nothing, is left to the viewer's imagination. 9 Songs features close-ups of [ahem] penetration, cunnilingus, fellatio and ejaculation as the two actors get right into character. Apparently there are no special effects here, what you are watching is actually two people having sex on screen.

There is very little dialogue, and what there is is only bits and pieces of conversations. Nobody explains anything. There are some nice short scenes just after sex when they are totally comfortable, but that always evaporates quickly. As he and Lisa get to know each other better, they become both more adventurous and also expect more of the other. When it becomes obvious that there is trouble in paradise they don't have a stand up row, they just have 'different' sex.

In between the sex we get a full song from each act, and they are superbly shot. Some of the better live acts around are shown [Primal Scream, Super Furry Animals, Franz Ferdinand, Elbow] and you really want to be there. The exhilarating atmosphere of the Brixton Academy is excellently evoked. You really wanna be there. Also the songs and concert performances kinda mirror how the relationship is going. When we are rocking with the Von Bondies you can tell things are going well. But when we see Matt's inscrutable face as they mutely observe a beautiful Michael Nyman live piano performance, we know the relationship is in trouble, even when they go home and tie each other up after.

The whole film is shot very nicely. There's a grainy, arty look to the film, and it is skilfully edited. Not to suggest more than is actually shown obviously, because everything is shown. But the way the emotional progression of the relationship is told through the interwoven sex and concert scenes is oddly affecting. Director Michael Winterbottom [In This World, Wonderland] appears to pile on the graphic sex to make us look beyond it. The actors don't seem burdened by what they are doing at all, the performances seem really natural. They look like they are enjoying themselves.

9 Songs is told very much from Matt's point of view. "It's claustrophobia and agoraphobia in the same place — like two people in a bed," he says while narrating the film from where he is now in Antarctica, after they have gone their separate ways. As he looks back on how their relationship progressed, he is kinda bitter, and Lisa comes across as quite a using bitch. He is probably as much to blame as she is for his own hurt feelings. Where she is just in it for the sex Matt, who is a good bit older, is left a bit unfulfilled. They just expect different things from each other. Other critics have complained that despite all the sex, the viewer never feels the intimacy of the two lovers. Maybe that's the point. And if it is, 9 Songs is actually a pretty bleak look at human relationships.

Or maybe I am reading way too much into this. In fairness 9 Songs is far from an unalloyed success. The voiceover and the lingering shots of the blank Antarctic landscape don't add that much. And in the cinema it is hard to let yourself go and look past the embarassment and awkwardness of watching real people have real sex while other real people shuffle around in the seat beside you. I definitely wouldn't advise taking somebody on a first date. But that doesn't mean it is a bad, or worse pointless, film. It's a strangely affecting, and possibly bleak look at modern relationships, from maybe the best young British film-maker around. Sex is a difficult thing. This is a decent film.