(from www.revolutionsf.com)The power of 9 is wielded by it's simplicity within a moderately complicated set of ideas. We've reached the destruction of mankind by man's own machinery used to protect himself. No humans are left and the victorious machines still hum and stir. The audience is introduced to the nine sack creatures who are the only speaking characters in the movie. You simply watch them finish off the machine that obliterated life on earth.
But throughout the need to bring the monster machine down, the sack creatures learn about themselves and from whence they came. Each sack person is addressed by the number the scientist who made them placed on their backs... presumably in the order in which each one was created. 9 is the most thoughtfully crafted and the last one in the line of sack people left to reclaim the planet from the machines.
Later in the film, you find out that the scientist that made the sack creatures also made this dangerous machine that is responsible for crafting more and more machines programed to search and destroy. Once 9 returns to "the source" (the room where he woke up), he finds a message that the scientist left for him. The scientist reveals how he created the machine and the 9 creatures. The machine possess the intellect of the scientist whereas the 9 creatures were infused with his soul. To create 9, the scientist sacrificed himself that his creation might live and save the decimated world and prepare it for regeneration.
I like any film that attempts to warn the rising generations of where we might be headed if we lose our hearts, our humanity. Even that completely wretched film that came out in my childhood, Fern Gully, children audiences follow a shrunken human into the rain forest. The film teaches awareness for preserving our last wild and natural areas on earth (which makes up for how bad the movie is...) Miyazaki makes wonderful films that seem to reach out to children to give them awareness about how to treat the environment, to respect all living things, to honor your duties. In this tradition, I feel that 9 has put its two cents into the pot of lessons for the generation to come, and I find that courageous and admirable.
There's also this vein of departing from "the old ways" to make room for "new innovations." 1 is the leader of this group who insists that the creatures wait in hiding until all the machines have run down and silenced themselves. Once 9 is awakened, he is determined to fix things in a more proactive way. Ultimately, the combination of these two approaches saves the day. I'm not sure if that's meant to be a commentary on what's going on in our current political climate, but I think it would work in most scenarios.
Obviously we can derive some spiritual tones in the elements of "the creator" and "the created." The scientist acts as the Divine giving life to his creation... but the Divine was also responsible for the evil in the world and barely leaves enough evidence behind to help the "good" defeat the "evil." This is probably the only element of the film that helps us relate to the sack creatures. They don't have names, they don't have much dialogue or time to establish interests or hobbies... but they are searching for what made them and a reason for why they're here. They also have the instinct to survive... so we can ultimately see ourselves in the sack creatures' roles.
As anyone could see from the previews, this movie is a visual feast. While the images are grim, colors are muted, and you're looking at the ruins of society (even a few dead bodies), the camera angles, the shot choices make the ruins breathe. The machine monsters are also just gorgeous... I haven't been so enamored of a monster since the creepy monster in Pan's Labyrinth who had eyes in the palms of his hands that he had to hold up to his head to see. My favorite monster in 9 is this snake robot that the "brain" machine creates to round up the sack creatures and destroy them, too. The gears slither in a long sack, then the arms fold to hold up the corpse of 2 ("killed" at the beginning of the film) who has been equipped with a hypnotic light shooting from his eyes making anyone looking at him faint. Then the sack opens to reveal a doll head with two different eyes and another set of arms to tie the body up and then place inside the sack with the rest of its innards... I couldn't find a good picture to place here on the blog... but it's beautifully terrifying.
I think this is a movie worth watching and even purchasing for home. I agree with another reviewer that the film is a little short (80 minutes), but I don't feel like there's anything missing from the story, so, maybe I'm just used to being bombarded with two hour films. I don't think this is a good one for little kids (it is PG-13 after all... too bad I didn't remind the people in front of us who had more than one child under the age of ten with them).
I know I enjoyed it! Go see it... now.
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