movie of the day: Nine Lives (2005)

the problem with watching a movie composed of vignettes, like Rodrigo Garcia's Nine Lives, is that often times, it is a series of short films linked only by a title or by the characters that are a part of the film. they believe that if they have the charcters from the vignettes interact, they will somehow unify the film, however, often times they just make a mess.

characters jumping to and from vignettes is a technique that Garcia emplys here, but it is not in place of some underlying thematic unity, but instead enhances it. take for example the vignette of Samantha, whose father suffers from a debilitating disease and whose mother, Ruth, has become exhausted by a life of taking care of Samantha's ailing father. Samantha's story is that she is the only thing her parents have left in common--they even talk through her, as one is always asking her what the other has said. later, Garcia gives Ruth her own story, but it never seems like Garcia feels obligated to do this--merely that there is something about Ruth's story that is worth telling.

and so it goes with Nine Lives. i was leery of the film at first for the reasons mentioned above. Garcia can be abrupt with his "endings" and cuts off where he feels that the life of the woman he is showing has shown what is needed. (this can be quite disconcerting and is perhaps a deliberate action on Garcia's part.) but thematically, i think the stories of these nine women come together nicely. Garcia realizes that if the film is thematically unified, it really isn't necessary to resort to rhetorical tricks to make us think a group of short films should really be together. His puzzle doesn't need to have nicely fitting pieces, even though most people probably wish that it would.

then again, that's how films that challenge us show that they are successful. and Nine Lives is no different. Four Stars (out of Five)