Nove Dias

I rated this a good 7/10 upon first watching. An already great note. But after watching this again today and paying much more attention to its small details, I have to admit Iiked it even more. It deserves a little more remarkable mark. A solid character driven drama. I hope to see more movies like this in time. Feels refreshing even if they are not that flawless. Go and see it!

I desperately wanted to connect with this movie. The premise was so interesting and I knew that if done right it had the p[potential to be extremely powerful and tug at the heart-strings. It also had the potential to make you question the value of your existence. Unfortunately it did none of those things for me. I just couldn't connect with it. I kept waiting for it to find its rhythm and it just never did.

The film is well made. It's beautifully shot, there's some great dialogue and the acting is great. It can't be faulted in those ways. But none of that matters if you can't connect with your audience. When you read the synopsis for this film you know is going to be a unique and daring experience. Films like this take risks and even if they don't pay off they have to be admired.

I can't personally recommend this film because it was not for me. That's not to say that you won't find something in it though. In fact I'd love it if others could find in this film what I could not. Maybe I'll watch this film 10-15 years from now and find what I missed first time around. 5/10.

This really rubbed me up the wrong way, on a matter of principle, because it's just too close to its source material, while adding nothing. This is 'After Life' by Kore-eda, my favourite film, only this 'visionary director' inversed the premise. Which ultimately makes little difference, it's still an exploration of what constitutes a meaningful existence on this earth.

It's beyond homage. Masquerading and marketing such plagiarism as a breathtakingly unique, original indie film (and fooling the press) is so much more insidious to me than the inevitably over-schmaltzified remake once-proposed in the 00s.

'Nine Days' takes the setup, the tone, the limbo setting, the bureaucratic elements, the interviews, the metaphysical questions, the down-to-earth quality, even the analogue VHS tapes and lovingly-crafted staged sendoffs. Even the minor plot developments were tonally the same. Zazie Beets and Benedict Wong are great, but performances become overwrought towards the end. The cinematography is beautiful. Yet in every aspect of actually feeling something, this pales in comparison to After Life. Much like when a knockoff design company changes a couple of small things on the product it's copying to avoid a lawsuit, but the final product isn't nearly as good as the original, this film doesn't provide anything approaching the quiet emotional resonance After Life does, instead descending into overwritten quasi-philosophical discussions which left me cold.

I don't mean to take the experience away from those who found it meaningful but it angered me most because I love cinema, I love unique voices, and I can't stand lauded frauds. When this guy's taking the Marvel money in a couple of years' time, Kore-eda will still be evolving his genuinely-authentic craft.

This movie is not just a movie, is a poem that unfolds throughout the time runtime of the film. We get to sort of see how possibly "god" works and how the existence of one individual can still continue beyond this realm. It feels like a warm dream, that could turn into a nightmare at any moment but it never does. You just fall in love deeper and deeper with whatever is happening in this dimension. It never fully answers anything nor does it try to explain the questions that is "trying" to answer but the end result leaves you wanting more.

After seeing this movie at Sundance, I made my way up to the stage so that I could shake Edson Oda's hand. I had to do it because I felt like I was going up to shake Orson Welles's hand after watching "Citizen Kane." I told him I had watched movies all my life and I believed this was the best movie I had ever seen. He looked shocked by that comment but thanked me. He hasn't been around long enough to be arrogant and condescending, I guess. Obviously, Nine Days strikes different people differently. I enthusiastically encourage you to see this movie to find out how it strikes you and I can only hope you have the exquisite experience it was for me. I am absolutely certain that Mr. Oda has created a masterpiece that will be much more highly respected in the future. I can hardly wait to see his future creations but, if he never makes another, he will have accomplished a life's work with this one.