Nine Lives

Director Rodrigo Garcia specializes in directing films composed of numerous vignettes. His characters emerge in more than one segment, creating a tapestry that helps weave together his themes of both connectivity and isolation. He debuted at Sundance in 2001 with Ten Things You Can Tell by Looking at Her, which featured Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, Amy Brenneman, Cameron Diaz and many other notables. Close, Hunter and Brenneman all returned for Nine Lives, along with Robin Wright Penn, Dakota Fanning, Sissy Spacek and others.

It is noteworthy that both of these movies are mostly about women, with men allowed only supporting roles, even within such ensemble casts. As Garcia freely admitted in the Sundance Q&A, he writes women better than men. Also evident in the Q&A is that the women of the cast adored him. And they rewarded him with outstanding performances.

Garcia treats his characters with a gentle touch, even when revealing their flaws. We feel compassion for them in their anguish. It is as if we have seen each of these women before, but only in passing. Now we are allowed to gaze into their souls, but never for too long. Garcia tells us enough to empathize, but not enough to judge. It felt like I was walking down a sidewalk on a Sunday afternoon, listening to conversations through open windows, catching only a glimpse of each family, but creating a powerful and lasting impression of the neighborhood. That is Garcia's world. And he is becoming master of the genre.

Rodrigo Garcia's "Nine Lives" raises the question of just how emotionally invested a viewer can become in a character who appears on screen for no more than ten or a dozen minutes throughout the course of a movie. And what happens if ALL the main characters show up for that little a time? For this is the case with "Nine Lives," a compilation of vignettes about nine virtually unconnected ladies, each of whom is struggling with issues common to women in a modern world. Some are coping with messy relationships, others with regrets about past actions, still others with health issues and the looming possibility of death. Even though the stories abut slightly on one another from time to time, each exists essentially as a stand-alone sketch able to function without the others.

The main problem with a movie like "Nine Lives" is that, for all the insights it offers into life and human relationships (and they are many), it simply can't develop its characters to any appreciable extent in the time it has allotted them. Just as we are becoming engaged by a particular woman and her situation, the movie shuts us down by cutting away to the next segment. This is really no criticism of the movie per se - which is a well written, well acted and well directed piece of lyrical film-making - but the structure dilutes our interest and robs the film of the cumulative force it might have had were the individual stories fleshed out to feature length.

Still, given the limitations, this is a film filled with flavorful moments and fine performances from a large and gifted cast that includes Sissy Spacek, Mary Kay Place, Glenn Close, Dakota Fanning, Holly Hunter, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Robin Wright Penn, Joe Mantegna and Aiden Quinn, among many others. And the final moments are so tender, poignant and touching that they carry the film to a level where it transcends artifice and makes a genuine human connection with its audience. Thus, despite the reservations one might have about the film as a whole, the parts are more than compelling enough to make it well worth watching.

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?

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.

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.