Nine Songs

Michael Winterbottom is a british director who as made several fascinating films which cross genre and narrative style. Here he tries to show the scope and trajectory of a relationship entirely through concert attendance, intimate moments in the apartment and graphic sex. A bold and interseting idea which crashes and burns so heavily here, I don't know where to start.
The characters are not interesting in themselves, the lighting is poor for no apparent reason, the concert footage is awful and the sound quality worse than a badly mixed cassette tape. While most of the sex scenes are 'realistic' they made no connection to me whatsoever. (The idea that I would would definately be having more interesting sex than what I am watching comes to mind). There is a metaphor of antarctica being a contient with a memory longer than anything else on earth. The story is told in flashbacks as the main character is on an expidition there. His voice over narration is badly done though and the metaphor of lonliness and coldness now versus warmth and passion then is trite. Even worse is the "i'm lonely in a crowded room" line.
I was a big fan of Winterbottom's 24 hour Party People and I like Go Now (i've heard that Code 46 and In this World are fantastic). This was the worst film I've seen (thus far) and a huge disappointment. (Heck, I like the gay p0rn film better.)