Cremaster 3

Curiosity seekers… seek no more. Pretentious and `arty' could describe it… but I have to say I thought some very good work went into the production design and music. Less such into the "story". It's the top of the Matthew Barney pyramid of art films, culminating in a three hour orgy of celtic mythology, masonic legend, truly retch inducing reverse dental surgery, hardcore punk bands, beautiful models with masonic symbol pasties, double amputee model Aimee Mullins as a catwoman and with clear acrylic prosthetic legs, artist Richard Serra tossing molten vaseline against the walls of the Guggenheim, a sojourn up the elevator shafts of the Chrysler Building, a demolition derby in same's lobby… shall I go on? All the above said, the movie is still truly what it advertised itself to be. The same couldn't be said of many truly awful commercial films, i.e., "Gods and Generals" or "Gigli." You get the broken promises of entertainment and/ or involving historical drama. With C3, you get a chariot race with zombie horses, covered in blankets with the `Cremaster 3' crest emblazoned on them. And don't forget to stop in the museum's gift shop as you leave the theater. Thank you.

Matthew Barney's "Cremaster" series of 5 feature-length videos are an exploration of this artist's various interests. He's basically interested in everything, and manages to squeeze everything into this series. "Cremaster 3" is the centerpiece, wherein architecture, Freemason ritual, and folklore (Irish, Irish-American, American) take center stage. Barney offers little insight into his interests, simply presents them, overlaps them, as if he just made a list of stuff he likes and then visualized them. Luckily, his visual sense is utterly dazzling and eloquent. As a director, he is undoubtedly indebted to Kubrick and Hal Ashby. The images are elegant but pungent, finely polished but visceral and even gory in parts. The tone of the video, however, is deceitful (for lack of a less harsh word), suggesting a story or plot that doesn't really exist, or is so buried in the visual splendor as to be insignificant. It could be seen as a puzzle, but, in Barney's own words (according to the DVD commentary of "The Order" segment of "3"), it is merely a series of illustrations of ideas that have already been well drawn out (ie. Freemason ritual). Still it's worth watching, and listening to as well. Jonathan Bepler's score is truly gorgeous, reminiscent of Danny Elfman but even more haunting.

This movie is THREE HOURS LONG. I tried, I really tried to understand what the hell was going on, but this epic, incomprehensible art film is nearly impossible to follow, even if you've read the synopsis on the cremaster.net website. There are a lot of visually interesting images, the "car crash" scene and the "dentures" scene being particularly strange and disturbing, but I kept looking at my watch wondering when this awful movie was going to end. However, I can't give it a 3 or a 4, because some of the images, like teeth traveling through intestines, and the leopard lady, are stunning and strange, so I'll be generous and give it 5 out of 10. But I can't recommend it to anyone but the arty elite. When it finished, I got up and said "Thank God that's over!"

I suppose you have to have already made a decision about who you a re and how cinema fits in your life to lucidly decide the first things about this. What is it and how will it speak to you?

I've now seen the "long" version and a 30 minute cut that was apparently done for exhibiting at The Guggenheim for patrons with less patience. Actually, with a different score that short version would be something useful. It isn't that the score is offensive. It is, but that's not what I'm trying to avoid. (Bjork's handling of "Restraint" was apt while annoying.) What he needs is something that plays with his symbol-universe sonically.

The short version cuts out the whole Chrysler erection sequence and shortens the Guggenheim. There's less Crisco tossing.

You may like this. It reeks of importance. It has layers of symbology, at least so far as notations and is very much like those paintings from that era when you could say: those grapes "stand for" so and so and that reclining lamb next to them "means" such and such. So okay: scots freemasonry as dedeconstruction, punk fried eggs, Dante's circles of museum hell, manufactured women except one beast goddess...

It seems for some of these he comes up with the symbol systems first, then surveys what material he has and then forms a performance out of that based on objects and himself. That's weak tea for me. "Cremaster 1" was an important and rich experience for me. That's because I believe he started with the images and built everything around that. Its really quite brilliant and I recommend it to you.

But not this. Its his own yard sale. Don't go.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Giant orges on an island. Punk bands dueling in the Guggenheim museum . Secret orders in New York's Chrysler building. Welcome to the ornate world of Cremaster 3, the third act in the `Cremaster Cycle' that plays out like a David Lynch film on crack. Or I should say reallllly drawn out David Lynch film on crack, as molasses would move faster then a lot of these scenes. At 3 and a half hours; with no dialogue, the pacing of a glacier melt, and some of the most jarring and horrific scenes ever captured on film…this one is definitely for the more patient art house film buffs. Directed and conceived by avant garde artist Matthew Barney, this film gives new meaning to the word cryptic. Think Mulholland Drive, Lord Of The Rings, and Koyaanisqatsi meets The Cell, From Hell, and a Marilyn Manson video. With some of the most rich cinematography ever, beauty is juxtaposed with labor and shock. Cremaster 3 is at once grotesque yet intriguing…a film that I found at times to be both hypnotic, funny, tedious; yet at other times downright frightening. Using a highrise as a metaphor, with each layer revealing yet another painstaking piece of the aria, the film comes full circle. And at completion, it cannot be denied; yet baffling, cryptic and exhausting would be more of the right description.