Nine Lives

"Nine Lives" is a valentine to women as a life force (from pregnancy to abortion, and only incidentally about sex, to care-giving and death), and the superb actresses bask like flowers in the sun at the attention.

Writer/director Rodrigo García creates nine vignettes, each introduced by the central character's name like a chapter heading, as master acting classes. In about ten minutes, each actress, and occasionally their male supporters, go from zero to ten, less through the language, which is so natural it seems improvised, but through their faces, bodies and inflections.

Each woman faces an emotional crisis involving her relationship with a loved one -- parent, child, lover, husband, sister; sometimes the stories start them at a high point and they reach a catharsis, others are in the midst of a normal day and then get socked with interactions that rock their balance. Each tries to stay in control of their situations, with emotional prices to pay. About half the characters briefly cross-appear in stories that may come before their previous appearance, mostly to add ironic meanings to a situation or dialog that would have a different impact without the added information from the other vignette. A refrain of "I can't stop thinking about you" comes with different meanings about love and guilt or obsession each time, though this is more about connections between people (as symbolized by the webs behind the interstitial name cards).

The two hander with Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs (with a very creditable American accent, though he seemed to be playing a very similar character as he did on "West Wing") packs a wallop, mostly through Penn's expressions and complete body language, from her eyelids to her fingers to her feet. A shopping walk through the long aisles of your neighborhood supermarket may never have quite the same expectations. Garcia's gliding camera work adds to the emotional freight as by widening and lengthening the frame he gradually reveals more information about the two characters.

Amy Brenneman paying respects at a funeral builds up in nervousness as we learn more about the complicated background of her relationship with the deceased, then goes for a crescendo in a brief, almost silently dynamic interaction with an explosive William Fichtner. This may be the first time that certain American Sign Language words have been used in a movie.

Lisa Gay Hamilton's character is so emotionally wrought that you get agitated just watching her, even as we cry over why she's so radioactive.

Kathy Baker facing surgery reveals more of the emotional complications for couples facing medical issues than a dozen Lifetime TV movies.

Garcia well shows women caught between strong people, particularly the vignettes with Amanda Seyfried and Holly Hunter, though the latter recalls "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" too much. Molly Parker creates warm chemistry with women as a friend in two stories. Dakota Fanning actually acts her age and seems like a natural child for a change in her vignette with Glenn Close.

I presume this was shot on digital video, judging by the saturated look of the beautiful cinematography. What will be lost by waiting to see the film on DVD will be the subtle details of the actresses' fulfilling performances that should be seen on a big screen.

Director Rodrigo Garcia is the son of the famous writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Brought up in a literary environment and choosing another medium of communication--the cinema--for himself, the son uses the tool of the father to chisel away at sculpting good cinema. Spoken words, characters, relationships play a major role in the finished product that a reader of Marquez would find easier to appreciate than others.

Ostensibly, the film is collection of 9 short stories or vignettes of 9 different women. In the first four, some characters appear in other episodes. The last five are connected by the word "connection". The last of the nine remains the most difficult and intriguing and an appropriate one to end the film.

The film captures each of the nine segments in a single shot without a cut. The film resembles various works of Robert Altman--even the long-shot of "The Player"--and the structure of "Magnolia" and "Crash." What "Nine Lives" has that the others do not is the Marquezian element of magical realism.

To explain this one has to begin at the final episode. "Nine lives" alludes to the cat. A cat is shown on a gravestone. A mother (old enough to be a grandmother) escorts a young girl (her daughter) to a grave and brings with her not flowers, but a bunch of grapes. She leaves the grapes behind on the grave. The final shot does not show the girl but the mother alone. Whose grave is it? Is the young girl real (or alive)? Did the mother bring grapes for a child who loved grapes, who is now merely a memory for an old woman? The stories are interconnected by relationships (mother-child) episode 1 and 9, parents and children (2 episodes of Holly and Samantha), husband and wife (Camille) and the trio of husband, wife and lover (Diana, Lorna and Ruth).

To savor the richness of the film, one has to go beyond each segment and look at the links the director provides to see the breaks in relationships and the ultimate reconciliation the full film provides. In the first episode, the viewer sees a break in the relationships. In the finale there is reconciliation even in death. In between, divorced couples consent to sex, a young teenager appears to be more sensible than her quarreling parents by giving up a chance for better education to keep the fragile family together, and another fighting couple remind you of Albee's George and Martha in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" An abused daughter realizes she cannot kill her father. A faithful husband helps his wife get emotionally ready for a mastectomy.

If there is a flaw, you can point out that it looks at nine women rather than nine men. But then in literature, cats are associated with females rather than men, and the director was born to a family who appreciated literature.

There is little that is spoken in this film. But each word is important to understand and enjoy the film. It is a film that deserved the Locarno Film festival honors. Personally, I loved the performances of Glen Close, Robin Wright Penn, the lovely Amanda Seyfried, Elpida Carillo and Ian McShane. But the entire cast was great--like any Altman film. Garcia, unlike Altman, stresses on the spoken word, not merely the images and music.

I saw the film at the recently concluded Dubai Film Festival. Was it a coincidence that Marquez's friend and Chilean filmmaker of repute--Miguel Littin--was outside the cinema hall trying to get a feel of the reaction of the audience to film made by his friend's son without being noticed?

I can't add a whole lot to what everyone else has said about this film. It's a series of vignettes that are loosely related. The acting is very good -- after all they got a whole bunch of Hollywood big guns to sign up. And I think the reason they signed up was because for an actor, this film is a bonanza. They get to play very intense emotions in a very tight space, without any dead dialog or perplexing plot (the plot isn't perplexing because there ain't no plot.) So it's a real treat to watch, but if you're looking for something really profound about life, forget it. About the only lesson here is that women are a force unto themselves, and a lot of the time the best you can do is just stand back. Each of the reviewers seems to have their favorite actors out of the nine, but I give them all a gold star for acting, and that includes the men too. BTW this is not a lighthearted romp -- it starts in a prison and ends in a graveyard. Mostly heavy stuff.

Columbian director and writer Rodrigo García (Things you can tell just by looking at her, multiple episodes of Six Feet Under, Carnivale, The Sopranos, Fathers and Sons, etc) does what few writer/directors are capable of: García observes the human condition, finds the stories that such observations suggests, fleshes out these ideas into vignettes, and then weaves them into a tapestry of a film that is simply breathtaking.

NINE LIVES is simply the reporting of nine women and their surrounding characters who are coping with an emotional crisis involving relationships with a parent, child, lover, husband, or sister and the manner in which each woman deals with keeping her life intact despite the trials of everyday living. Imagine walking down a street, as a flaneur, observing glimpses of a person and conversation that lasts only as long as the time you approach, pause and pass on by and you have an idea of the technique García uses. These little short stories are the stuff of life we all encounter: García pauses long enough to let them make an impact.

Part of the beauty of this film is the sterling cast which includes some of our finest actors - Kathy Baker, Amy Brenneman, K Callan, Glenn Close, Stephen Dillane, Dakota Fanning, Holly Hunter, Jason Isaacs, Joe Mantegna, Ian McShane, Mary Kay Place, Aidan Quinn, Sissy Spacek, Robin Wright Penn - the list goes on. There is a sense of ensemble commitment to this film despite that only occasionally do the characters overlap. The writing is terse, understated, always saying just enough to arrest our attention before moving on, much the way life keeps passing. A very fine work, and one that reminds us that great movies from quiet stories come. Grady Harp

Another great movie by Rodrigo García in the same style as "Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her (2000)." Garcia shows his literary roots by making the cinematic equivalent of books of collected short stories. Collections of shorts have been done before but I don't remember it ever being done this effectively.

As a viewer, you have to live with lots of unresolved issues since +- 15 minutes provides only a snapshot of these women's lives. But Garcia rewards the thoughtful viewer as themes emerge from the collection of sketches.

Like in "Things You Can Tell..." the acting if first-class and scenarios authentic.

The cast alone makes this movie worthwhile. How does Garcia get such terrific talent? I suspect that his short story format allows actresses/ors to fit in a quick Garcia movie between their big paycheck films, allowing them to up their credibility with an art-house flick. But these aren't throw-away roles... they really give it their best! Of course, you're going to like some segments better than others. I found it odd that Garcia LED with what I felt was one of the weaker segments (The LA Jail). He ends with one of the best (Dakota Flanning and Glenn Close). My favorite was Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs in the grocery store. It touched me very deeply.

The final story (Flanning and Close) is one of the sweetest and lightest which bring up my biggest criticism of the film... Garcia could lighten up a little. A little more humor and a little more playfulness could really help his next film... and I hope he does make another in this same style.

My other criticism is of the cinematography which I don't find appealing... it tends to be overexposed and needlessly bleak at times. Admittedly, it does accurately convey both the emotions of the women and the feel of Southern California but I think it is overused. (Possibly he is trying to make the best of low budgets.) In summary.. this film is DEFINITELY worth watching as long as you are willing to accept it for what it is... a collection of snapshots rather than the more developed characters and story that traditional movies provide. If you are renting, I suggest that you also pick up a copy of "Things you can tell..." and have a mini Garcia film festival.