NINE DAYS: FILM REVIEW
Edson Oda’s Nine Days is just as much a film about life as it is our perception of being alive. Set in a parallel dimension akin to a “before life,” the Japanese-Brazilian director’s feature debut is morally dizzying. Nine Days imposes the heavy responsibility of life onto the viewer — and unfolds a world where those who desire to feel alive the most have no concept of what it entails.
Nine Days revolves around the premise that for nine days, souls inhabit a desert-stretched land where they audition for a chance at being alive. Their interviewers consist of those who have been alive before; they were once unborn souls too. Oda’s particular story focuses on an interviewer named Will (Winston Duke) — a skeptical, stubborn, but compassionate protagonist who lives in a shabby cabin he just barely managed to convert into a home office. Lining the walls of his living room are a set of TVs attached to VHS tapes. Each TV plays footage of what the world looks like through the eyes of an individual Will has picked for life. Will and his assistant Kyo (Benedict Wong) treat these human beings like their children. When one of them has a violin concert, Will and Kyo dress up in button-downs and sit in front of the TV to marvel at the individual they decided to give the chance of life to. And now, with a set of five new candidates competing to be born, Will must choose his next winner once again.
The row of interviewees that show up on Will’s doorstep could not be more different — ranging from nervous comics like Alexander (Tony Hale) to skeptics like Kane (Bill Skarsgård). But it’s a woman named Emma (Zazie Beetz) in particular that stands out. Unlike her competitors, Emma refuses to answer Will’s questions as if they are the status quo. Will is simultaneously entranced but offput by her behavior, while Kyo pushes for her candidacy. As part of their evaluation, Will gives interviewees the task of watching his VHR recordings and writing down their observations. Some write down moments that make them laugh, while others sketch images of scenes they are particularly drawn to. Emma fills every page of her notebook with a list she titles, “things I like.” Will can’t tell if Emma’s resistance makes her a perfect or entirely unfit candidate for life — and throughout, it becomes clear that the decisions Will makes about who to eliminate says more about his perception of the world than the person at hand.
As if being the ultimate decider of life isn’t existential enough, Oda throws an even bigger wrench into Will’s ever-growing crisis. Just as Will is about to begin the nine-day process of evaluating candidates, he witnesses footage on one of his TV screens of his precious violin protégé intentionally crashing her car on a way to a concert. The screen projects colored bars before turning to black, as Will stands in an immobile state of shock. How could such a carefully crafted pick want to kill herself? Will’s nine-day test might not be as fool proof as he once thought — and the suicide haunts him throughout the evaluation process.
By setting Nine Days in a place of unborn souls, Oda meditates on the level of consciousness people lead their lives with — contemplating the possibility that human beings might just be swimming in water they forgot they were immersed in. Closing the film with Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, Oda seeks not to answer such questions, but rather grounds the film in the present — never ceasing to remind viewers of the spectacular fragility of the lottery ticket of life they’ve been given.