Drawing Restraint 9

This experimental film is utterly gorgeous. Barney's film's are as ambitious as any Hollywood blockbuster. The visuals are stunning and the soundtrack by Bjork is the best music to date for one of the artist's projects. If this film comes to your town, I highly recommend checking it out. The narrative structure is somewhat unusual and the film contains almost no dialogue. I found the experience reminiscent of my first time seeing Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey". If you're looking for action, this may not be your cup of tea (ha ha). The Japanese locations, the costumes, music, sets, cinematography & special effects create a seamless and highly polished package.

I just saw this the other day. I Was in the second row of the cinema so close to all these weird happenings. I knew that it would be slow and hardly without a story. With that in mind I really liked the slow moving pictures, the building of the big Vaseline-sculpture, and the meeting between Björk and Barney(it takes a long time before they actually meet on screen)

I see why some people would find it annoying, but to me it had some stunning visuals and the music was really good.

Just sit back and relax and don't expect much more than two hours of slow moving and weird stuff.

I originally saw this at it's Toronto Film Festival premiere. I went alone and allowed myself to be drawn in slowly, almost becoming hypnotized by it. The film is like a long, bizarre, beautiful dream that made me feel like I was high on some wonderful drug.

The imagery is stunning, inspired! Bjork's soundtrack is perfect. Both Barney and Bjork provide compelling performances. What more can be said except see this film and let it speak to you. Its a wonderful opportunity to see some experimental film by a truly gifted artist (or pair of artists, including Bjork's significant contributions)

Take a chance, it'll be worth it.

There's no dialogue for a while, and then there's some Japanese dialogue, and all the while, I didn't really know what was going on. I was lost at pretty much all times, but that was to be expected. This had "avant-garde" written all over it, and for being an art piece, I guess it's sporadically interesting. It probably achieves what it sets out to do, but whatever that is feels unclear to me. If you want to dive in, there's probably a lot to chew on, but as to whether it would taste any good, who knows. Probably not. But it's challenging. That's more of an observation rather than something that makes it bad or good. And there's some music here composed by Bjork, though she didn't do all the music it seems. I don't know.

That's my take away. I don't know.

It you are Japanese or know something about Japanese mythology and/or whaling culture in japan, then this movie will mean a lot more to you than others.

I know most people who watch this movie will come out of the theater ferociously hating Matthew Barney and be turned off of modern art, but for me, this movie was grounded in ancient Japanese traditions. And to have witnessed it, even if it is bastardized from it's Japanese roots, is a fortunate event.

I'll attempt to write the plot as I saw it.

Barney and Bjork were invited onto the whaling vessel as guests. They begin their journey by transforming into sea spirits through several elaborate and beautiful (however long and confusing) ceremonies and rites of passages . This all happens while the whaling crew perform their duties on the symbolic whale. In the end the journey takes a gruesome turn and the transformation is complete.

This is by no means an easy movie to sit through, be forewarned. However, I believe the value is in your furthered exploration into the subject of Japanese culture, ritual and mythology.

Be sure to check out the exhibit at your local museum if it comes to your town. It is absolutely amazing to see.