9½ Weeks 4K 1986 Ultra HD 2160p

The story of a sudden passion between a man and a woman who meet by chance, which lasts only nine and a half weeks. When she meets him, her composure evaporates in an instant. The sophisticated seducer draws her into a spectacular love game that forces her to abandon her former principles in life.

User Review

The film is much deeper and more artistic than it was presented to us at the time through the mass media. Mickey Rourke, the sex symbol of the 80s, and Kim Basinger, his partner in this field, are not the stars who shine in this film, but rather, when you look closely and attentively at the director's imagery, they are entire worlds of men and women created by Adrian Lyne.

It would seem that the film tells the story of how a woman met a man who captured her feelings and desires, and then realized that he was just a guy who loved beautiful women and variety in sex. Realizing that she needed sex, the heroine left with pain in her heart.

But when you really think about the film, it suddenly dawns on you: the film is about too bright a light, a light that reveals everything, and the fact that the human soul cannot withstand such light; this scenically bright light kills the mystery of love.

We all remember the scene after Elizabeth runs away from John from the hotel. Wandering into a sex club, she sees a woman and a man making love on the floor under blinding spotlights. She sees a tight circle of men around them, staring intently at the couple. The heroine weeps, involuntarily sympathizing with this spectacle. Why does this scene in the film become the dividing line after which Elizabeth leaves John? What really happened that was so terrible that Elizabeth could not live with John?

Let's remember that the relationship and acquaintance of the main characters begins when she sees a fish at the market while shopping with her friend. We see the exact same fish at the artist's house, which is located in an abandoned, remote house—we see it before her last night with John... The fish symbolizes something living in the depths, which outside—in the light—gradually suffocates without its element, just as the heroine's love suffocates later.

What is it that so deeply connects, at the director's will, the old lonely artist and the sensual and beautiful Elizabeth? In the film itself, the relationship with John develops in parallel with the appearance of the artist's paintings in the gallery. Elizabeth finds them beautiful and perfect, admiring them with absolute sincerity. The director deliberately uses the paintings and the artist to create a metaphor for what is happening between the main characters in the film. To be more precise: what is happening to Elizabeth? Sex and erotic relationships are just as delicate a matter for the heroine as art. The director shows us this through Elizabeth's self-satisfaction as she looks at slides of the artist's paintings.

Her relationship with John is art for her, whether it's sex or feelings. She treats him the same way the artist treats his paintings—he lives alone, and art is a very delicate and deeply intimate process for him, in which only two people can participate: him and his work. The artist sees no point in showing off the creations of his brush. He lives alone with his canvases and therefore has no need for people preoccupied with the social games surrounding art, with exhibitions and fashionable parties—they cause him pain with their alien world. And when, at the end of the film, he attends his own exhibition, he cannot fit into the glamorous world of spectacle rather than art.

No one understands him; to fashionable people, he seems “scary” because in his gaze there is a desire to escape from this falseness in the gallery, from such exposure of his deeply spiritual self... He even looks pitiful, somewhat out of place in this public exposure, and it is at this moment that he meets the eyes of Elizabeth, who is crying in the corner. They understand each other without words, feeling the same thing. As if becoming them, Elizabeth runs away from the exhibition, gasping for breath.

Elizabeth washes her face, as if washing away the dirt of public exposure. Immediately after this, there is a scene where she leaves John in the morning. One may ask: what is so terrible about playing with a prostitute in a hotel? What did the heroine see in this that was so terrible? This is where the enormous depth of the film lies.

If we go back to that fateful scene in the hotel, we see that when Elizabeth goes up to her room, she meets a girl who looks like a little angel—a symbol of purity and innocence. For Elizabeth, her relationship with John is the same as an artist's relationship with his paintings: a deep and secret world of the soul. Her sex with John is art for the heroine; deeply internal, as it is for the artist. Even the fact that John so often blindfolds her symbolizes a deep immersion into the inner world.

The dialogue is not so much between bodies as between souls. It is a world in darkness that no one should see, because if they do, Elizabeth will not be able to live like this. And this collapse of their inner relationship occurs at the moment when John brings a prostitute to the room—precisely when the viewer enters their relationship, even if only for a sexual game, everything collapses for the heroine. The viewer exposes this relationship in the film to the crowd, as if someone had turned on a bright light and illuminated everything in the heroine's soul.

The mystery of art dies at this moment, becoming nothing more than a spectacle. Just as, in the next moment, sex under bright spotlights, surrounded by a crowd, becomes a spectacle. Looking at this, the heroine seems to see herself and John in the “public lovers.” Unable to bear the pain of this exposure, she even begins to sob.

It is after realizing the horror of the spectacle that Elizabeth meets the gaze of an artist at the exhibition who feels the same way. The director seems to be telling us that true art, like true relationships between people, is deeply sacred and internal — it is a deeply emotional matter that cannot exist under too bright a light.

In the end, John understands Elizabeth and, with tears in his eyes, tries to express through his inner pain, or something too intimate for him—a story about his parents—that he understands the violation of the mystery between them and tries to say that he is ready to expose his innermost feelings in response. But Elizabeth says, “It's too late,” because the secret element in which true feelings could live has already been lost.

Elizabeth leaves John precisely because he destroyed the secret world of their relationship by introducing a third person. She cannot stay because there is nothing left between them.

The title of the film is the final touch: 9 with 1 2 weeks is so similar to approximately the same number of months when something alive and real is born... But the world of games and entertainment replaces what is alive and full-blooded, reducing it to the word “weeks.”

Info Video

Codec: HEVC / H.265 (59.5 Mb/s)
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Info Audio

#English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
#French: DTS 2.0
#Spanish: DTS 2.0
#German: DTS 2.0
#Italian: DTS-HD Master Audio 1.0
#Russian: DTS 5.1
#Polish: Dolby Digital 5.1

Info Subtitles