Drawing Restraint 9 (2005) User Reviews

nice moods and weird scenery

[mathis24 · 7/10 · 4 April 2006]

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.

Brilliant and beautiful

[adnoid77 · 9/10 · 25 October 2005]

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.

More a meditation than a film.

[illusionation · 4/10 · 27 August 2006]

I can appreciate what Barney is trying to achieve, but after sitting through this last night at a college movie house, I couldn't help but think...when is this gonna end? A very long and ponderous two hours and fifteen minutes. I had only seen a part of Cremaster 3 on DVD and thought I knew what to expect. That said, experimental films such as this are better digested in small increments. There are a couple of beautiful/horrible images...including the title sequence (no kidding), but if you go into this expecting any kind of plot or meaning, then you are in for a long, snooze-inducing ride. I managed to stay awake for the whole thing (if that's a compliment) but more often than not, I was waiting for some kind of meaning or narrative...big mistake. Among the collection of images are a very ornate gift-wrapping ceremony, the creation of a disgusting dish of what appears to be petroleum jelly slabs formed with a cookie cutter and sprinkled with shrimp (this is served to the crew of the ship which is shown throughout the film), a large blubber cheesecake with a large tentacle turd placed in the center of it, and the mutual evisceration of Bjork and director Matthew Barney which eventually culminates in some bizarre kind of communion, followed by their transformation into whale-like creatures. The soundtrack is at times beautiful and annoying...sometimes even maddening. At one time, there is a song being sung by Bjork to go along with the ephemeral rituals being played before us, and at other times there is just a constant droning of a high-pitched instrument, which we see a mysterious woman playing at the beginning and end of the movie. If this sounds like it doesn't make sense, that is because is DOESN'T! If this sounds like your cup of tea, then you will absolutely LOVE it! If this sounds like something that you probably won't like, then stay far away from it, because you will most likely walk out of the theater during the halfway mark like several people at the screening I attended. This is the very definition of an art film. You get from it what you take from it. But otherwise, there really isn't much there, other than a few oddities and constant construction and deconstruction rituals. I'm glad that there is a place for films such as this, but I can't say I would want to sit through it again. However, I can't say I wouldn't want to see one of Barney Cremaster films from start to finish and compare it with this. I think, perhaps now that I know what to expect I might enjoy something like this more. To give you an idea of what kind of comprehension factor this film has, I probably would've liked it better if I had gotten stoned. Then again, it could've felt twice as long as it was, and then it would've REALLY gotten ponderous. Definitely not for everyone.

Amazing!

[slittleshot · 9/10 · 19 September 2005]

Caught this film at the Toronto Film Fest a couple days ago. Bjork was a no show however her husband - the director/actor/writer of the film, Matthew Barney was in attendance.

Barney, very shy and reserved, spoke about the origins of the Drawing Restraint films but only seemed to confuse the audience the more he spoke. He ended up explaining that in order to expand/succeed that something had to be in resistance. His final words told us that every time he didn't know what to do artistically he would always create a new Drawing Restraint film. However, he announced that Drawing Restraint 9 became more of a narrative than just images. The Toronto Film Festival Representative told us that this was the best love/romance movie that had played since the festival began earlier that week.

The film starts with someone gift-wrapping a fossil. Like most of the film it is drawn out and some may find it boring. Although, if you are patient and enjoy beautiful images(Barney) and music(Bjork) you'll be happy. We move on to the construction of a ramp that extends into the ocean. Following, we watch strange breathing pearl divers that are dressed in all white.

The Guests, Bjork and Matthew Barney, travel separate to the whaling vessel on two different smaller ships. Bjork arrives first to the vessel and is bathed in a very interesting and creative scene that includes strategically placed oranges. Matthew arrives a bit later and is shaved.

Their rituals continue as they are prepped for, I'm assuming, some type of union. They wear elaborate mammal costumes that reflect the Japanese environment they're in. Bjork has such a headpiece on that I am surprised her neck didn't break while filming.

The special effects of the film seem to blow Hollywood big budget movies out of the water. From the titles, to the Panic Room-like dolly through the kitchen through the keyhole shots, to the globs of blood that dance in the water near the end the effects are seamless and amazing. By the way for Bjork fans, the blood in the water reminded me of the Lynn Fox video for Nature is Ancient.

More for Bjork Fans. Drawing Restraint 9 is nothing like Dancer In The Dark. Shot on 35 mm, the color is magical and contrasts against many of the backgrounds within the film. Bjork speaks only a few words within the film and it sounds like her native language. And, it doesn't leave you depressed for three weeks like Dancer does.

Like I said before, the film is long and drawn out at times. But stick with it. The end is a huge pay off for anyone that enjoys a cryptic and extremely gory ending.

Drawing Restraint 9, or The Whale

[sandover · 15 April 2010]

This film is, mutatis mutandis, the Moby-Dick of our era.

Matthew Barney has an Ahab-like obsession with art; it is appropriately ironic that in his case there are some eco-religious overtones against whaling that never really threaten with propaganda the fierceness of the meditation, for a meditation it is, part of Matthew Barney's lifelong meditation on America; if this seems far-fetched, remember Cremaster's epic scale, remember in Cremaster the Chrysler building, remember how evocative and subtle is Mailer's use in Cremaster as, that other exemplary American, Houdini. At least for me, this reverberates suggestively as one of the most refined recent comments on American spirituality.

Is Matthew Barney's quest an unholy war towards art with art's conceptual industry? Is this what the ambivalent title/wordplay "Drawing Restraint" is about? Everyone will give his own answer, but for this viewer the object drawn is strikingly equivalent to what in lacanian psychoanalysis is called object a, that is an Utopian, fantasmatic object which in one instance can function as cause, and in another as object of desire. For me, this specific status of the object in his works, along with making the artistic object resist symbolization, that is, having the status of trauma as defined in psychoanalysis, is what makes funny Mr Barney's inquiry fascinating, standing apart, and him a kind of prophet of the unknown.

Thank you.

yikes!

[martinmaguire · 2/10 · 2 April 2006]

Don't get the impression from other reviewers that this film stinks cos it's ambivalent about the Japanese whaling industry (which, morally, is no worse than the US meat trade or the Scottish haggis cull), it stinks cos it's pretentious tosh, the sort of up-its-own-behind guff that gets modern art a bad name. That said, there are some stunning images, but there are stunning images in the average bus ride if you use your imagination, so that's no reason to go and see this nonsense. What happens in the film happens very slowly and often accompanied by a soundtrack that sounds like a cat being gutted, and then, just when you thinks it's finished, it starts again. I saw it it in a porn cinema in Rome which had been hired for the weekend to show Barney's film works, which is an admirable and clever way to reclaim what had once been a local fleapit from the dirty-old-men-in-macs brigade, but if the trendy young things and the slightly older beard-stroking Bjork fans were to be honest, everyone might have had a lot more fun if they'd just shown one of the pornoes!

Amazing!!!

[thomas-835 · 10/10 · 27 September 2006]

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.

Pretentious Restraint

[cofemug · 2/10 · 20 September 2006]

Drawing Restraint 9. dir: Matthew Barney.

How do you know when you're in the middle of a pretentious art film? Is it that there is only 8 lines of dialogue in 140 minutes of film? Is it when Bjork is wearing what looks like a giant furry pita on her head in a pseudo-Asian ritual? Maybe when mammoth turds and spinal columns are used in a whale blubber experiment. Or, when you're about ready to kill the composer for making a minimal, and still annoying, version of a Philip Glass score? In any case, Drawing Restraint 9 is among the most pretentious of the modern art movies. At 135 minutes, it adds to its pretension by being boring to boot. I would call the use of color stunning, and the opening sequence interesting, but the rest of the movie looked like it was filmed for a Discovery Channel documentary. That is until it looks like they were trying to film their version of P-ss Christ, but that will be coming up later.

Actually, the documentary-esquire portions were the best parts of it. The surface plot is about a whaling ship, and then there is a ritual about making whale fat. Then, there are the guests in the form of Bjork and Matthew Barney who are welcomed on the ship by being put through a ritual of humiliation which includes passed-out head shaving (think frat boy pranks), nicotine patches, and giant furry pita hats. Then there is mutual evisceration, cannibalism, and lets not forget the giant turd.

Matthew Barney has written that this is about "the relationship between self-imposed resistance and creativity." That's almost like saying, "if you don't get it, then you're not creative in your interpretation, so sod off because I'm an artist." Oh, wait, that's the POST-modern interpretation of that sentence and what the movie would be about if it was POST-modern. But, its supposed to be Modern art. Which is about the art itself.

So, let's start this whole interpretation bit, shall we? The following lines are only 3/4 serious and should not be taken as any realistic attempt to interpret the movie.

The first half-hour concerns pearl divers and the construction of a giant ramp. Obviously, the ramp is symbolic of the need for self-elevation to whatever standards you hold dear, and the pearl divers are looking for pearls of wisdom. Then, on a whaling ship, they build a crate that looks like it is in the crude shape of a whale. Obviously a crude element of foreshadowing.

On the ship, they make whale fat inside the shape of the whale, and take out the fins portion. They replace this with a spinal column and later a giant turd. These are supposed to be the states of the movie itself. When its fat, its entertaining but bad for you. When it is the spinal column, its the "important" parts of the movie, or the backbone so to speak. Then, the giant turd is the bowels of the movie, or when the movie is crap.

Bjork and Matthew Barney the arrive on separate ships, are put into strange humiliating outfits which AREN'T EVEN WELL MADE OR SYMMETRICAL, one suspects that they ran out of money and Barney was trying to quit smoking. SO, they put patches on his head. They go through a ritual and learn about the ship from a Japanese wise man, who tells them that the ship is scarred from when another ship hit it; a crash or intersection, if you will. This inspires Bjork and Barney, who are different on the outside, to start cutting each other's legs off and eat them so they could turn into whales themselves and be the same person. They intersect. Oh, did I forget to mention that this has been done in a Robbie Williams video? Then, the pearl divers come back with their mouths full of pearls of knowledge which they let fall to make a stupid Venn Diagram. Barney made it through 8th grade geometry, obviously. Or, maybe at least some social studies.

Oh, and did I forget Bjork's ear-gouging I-want-to-kill-her score? At times it is hypnotic, but at others you just want to assassinate her.

Art film is one thing, but when you just throw up all sorts of symbolism in the hopes of getting a reaction out of people, it becomes a self-destructive joke. When do you cross the line between becoming a joke in terms of art? Dali and Bunuel frequently made surreal pieces of nonsense but were more coherent and/or entertaining than this piece of trash. Un Chien Andalou had the sensibility to cram as much symbolism as it could into less than half an hour.

So, can I recommend this? Only if you like dull HIGH ART films with lots of symbolism and flat imagery.

D+

Older Story Deeper Scar

[fred-711 · 10/10 · 19 April 2006]

Last night I went to the movies; saw Drawing Restraint 9, a new film by Matthew Barney and featuring Bjork. I don't go to a lot of movies, but when I left this one I was convinced that I had not gone to a movie at all, but participated in an ancient magical rite having nothing to so with modern movie making.

While definitely not a Hollywood feature, it was nevertheless described in the usual hyperbole put out by the theatrical machine conglomerates: "Mesmerizing Viewing, Amazingly Beautiful, Startling Wit and Invention." Of course it was all of the above, but what I saw and experienced in the movie theater was something more than that; something else altogether, the telling without words and reconstruction of an ancient primeval theater that can only be entered by instinct and non-human intelligence.

Most of the action takes place aboard ship. On board a Japanese whaling vessel two occidental guests (Barney and Bjork) are invited aboard to share in a formal tea ceremony with the captain. First they are dressed in elaborate wedding clothes inspired by Shinto marriage rites, because after the ceremony they will emerge themselves in a kiss that not only unites the two in a limited matrimony, but also reunites them with the greater sea.

I'm not even sure if this was a movie; perhaps it was an actual documentary constructed around the performance of some long forgotten ancient religious ritual, being remembered just now with the help of modern awareness that media affords, like the telescope aided Galileo in redefining the heavens. Yet I do not think the hundreds of "extras" were privy to any of this.

And I should make it clear that the extras weren't really extras at all -- they were the actual crew members who live aboard ship. What Barney and Bjork have done, in my estimation, was commandeered the ship and held the captain and crew hostage -- with their permission of course, while pretending to star in a movie -- and then initiated the ancient rites recently remembered by the Icelandic Bjork.

But of course the millions of dollars that this all must have cost would've produced one hell of a Hollywood blockbuster! Yet for Bjork and Barney it is an extremely limited engagement that will disappear within a week of its showing. For them the rewards will have been recognized instantly, not in box office dollars but in a newer awareness that an old universe continually demands of its inhabitants.

The soundtrack is made of songs, chants and primeval sounds dispersed throughout the movie, which on another level act as incantations spoken directly to Nature, to reverse the direction of Art, specifically the Art of the Whaling Ship. This is hinted at when Bjork and Barney go through an amazing transformation at the close of the film, transforming themselves into whales, complete with blowholes, and return to the sea from which we were all plucked in our infancy.

Further indication that this "movie" is really a magical rite in which we are all invited to take part is the captain's short telling of the history of the ship, how it suffered a slight scar at sea (being rammed by another ship), a scar which is now etched on the memory of the crew. "But there is a much older story within the deeper scar." The captain and his occidental guests tell that story to us, through the traditional Japanese tea ceremony wherein they drink of a mixture infused from of the "magnificent ambergris that was once passed through the whale" and the subsequent marriage vows by which the guests cut away superfluous limbs and prepare themselves for their voyage back to the sea, where ceremony once again takes on the fluidity of life.

There are additional insights from Bjork's sparsely sung sound track. Utilizing the essential sounds from the ocean and the life in, around, and aboard the ship, she whispers in places the ancient formula of creation: From the moment of commitment, Nature conspires to help us. It is the old Christian aphorism, "All things are provided when we first seek the Kingdom of Heaven." Or Hell, if you prefer.

In truth I believe this movie was conceived as ritual, performed by devout and honest people who were not acting (only accentuating and theatricalizing their normal activities) but ultimately redirecting the energies of nature towards the ending of a cruel and unusual punishment still being practiced on one of the great and magnificent life forms that welcomed us aboard in the first place.

Possibly tedious at some points, I thought it was equally wonderful that Bjork and Matthew and the Captain and crew had so much leisure to be able to tell the story, to act in this way, to live for weeks or months on the ship and its legacy. But then, I'm a full time artist who has no idea what time it is.

What was happening on the screen was only a key meant to unlock what has always been happening within us, within the deeper scar from which we all are naturally and continually emerging our being.

Warning: Don't go see this movie with an audience who expected to go see a movie. Buy the DVD instead and follow the instructions, safely inside the privacy of your own home.

Bjork's influence has been a very good thing for Matthew Barney.

[Delly · 26 April 2006]

To hear Matthew Barney interviewed, saying things like "I will continue to manipulate space in film," you would think that he has nothing on his mind but process. Yet the evolution of Drawing Restraint 9 is spiritual, not formal. DR9, in fact, is a complete repudiation of the noxious Ayn Rand-stinking cosmology of the Cremaster films. Freud has been replaced by Jung, and Hegel by Kierkegaard. This is a Barney film that could bring you to tears. Any doubts about whether he's an artist or fraud are laid to rest by this film -- frauds do not grow, they just keep along the same path.

I had my doubts about the Cremaster films ( except for Cremaster 2, still the most uncanny piece on Barney's resume ) The first hour and a half of Drawing Restraint 9 had me squirming, sure that Barney was unmasking himself as a joke once and for all. All of Barney's faults are on display -- the crude appropriation and dim understanding of other cultures and myths, the glossy yet flat cinematography that would only look stylish to a reader of Vogue, the hunch that the only movie he's ever seen is The Shining, and a generally unfocused feeling, as if he's casting around for meaning that isn't there. And then, of course, there are those endless shots of men doing their work, building a better future, creating that obelisk to the sky! Except here the bumbleheaded Hegelian philosophy of history-in-action was even more boring because of the documentary trappings. Instead of showing a legless woman strap on a blade and chop potatoes, a metaphor for a half-completed action, we see real men doing real jobs. Only occasionally Barney has them producing one of his symbols, or sticks a blue feathered afro on top of a tanker, so that we know these seemingly mundane tasks will eventually have vaguely triumphant, Wagnerian results.

Then, suddenly -- if you can speak of suddenness in a film like this, and I think you can -- the Japanese men start loading a harpoon gun and firing nasty spikes at nasty speeds into the sea. And you realize that what you took to be another Barney paean to progress has crumbled. We are now sailing in deep hippie waters, my friend. And the sailing is good. Barney and Bjork retire to a tatami-matted cabin and the film begins to go places the Cremaster films would never dare. The cinematographer suddenly discovers shadow and grain-texture. Bjork's uninspired score becomes hypnotic. A feeling of death, doubt, and failure creeps into the film, as a Japanese sage tells a story of a primal scar made by the collision of two ships, while Barney and Bjork are posed with the edge of a whale statue separating them. The personal, the political, the spiritual and the mythical start to engage in supercollision.

The film seems to have been conceived as an exercise in humility, repentance for the colossal egotism of the Cremaster films. Barney takes pains to highlight his new bald spot, making him look like a tonsured monk, there is a nude scene which proves he is no Vincent Gallo, and -- most memorably -- Barney speaks! As a studly silent mannequin in the Cremaster films, he had mystery, but here he lets you in on the dirty little secret: He has the geekiest voice in history, almost like how a castrato would talk in daily conversation. Listen closer, however, and he sounds almost angelic...

This new humility, which may have roots in marriage troubles or encroaching baldness -- the root of insight is often just this shallow -- justifies the Asiatic trappings. But Barney is hiding his real light under a bushel. It is a Western religion that truly moves him these days. There are a "trinity" ( hint hint ) of symbols consisting of whale ambergris, pomegranate seeds and shrimp whose meaning I won't spoil for you. Except to say that Barney is calling you a shrimp. And asking you to be a whale. The "restraint" of the title starts to feel a whole lot more like renunciation, and the inner joys it brings.

Life is fair after all: It costs ten dollars for a ticket to DR9, and unless you're a zombie, you will get more pleasure and consolation from this film than any billionaire computer-peddler could get out of one of Barney's vaseline tubs.

abuse of the audience

[mountain_lights · 3/10 · 15 August 2006]

I watched this movie as a preview of a Matthew Barney art exhibit. It certainly prepared me. I almost skipped the exhibit and, in retrospect, probably should have.

Aside from the score being great (Bjork) and the photography rich and colorful, the content was mostly tedious and predictable. Gee, I really needed to see someone wearing pearls to figure out what the pearl-divers were up to. The film was mostly a silly mixture of Japanese cultural references and industrial shots of modern whaling technology being used in a mock-hunt/harvest. The film "peaks" with enough gratuitous shock-art to turn your stomach.

What was the point of the movie? While others might argue that it is an anti-whaling piece, one could equally argue that it somehow also justifies whaling. Personally I think it was Barney's attempt at "flashing" the audience with his anal, fecal, self-mutilation, and cannibalistic fetishes.

Bottom line: unless you really get off on Barney's sense of art, don't bother seeing this movie. The message is obscure, the pace slow, and the cultural references pretentious. If you're after shock-art, you'll do better at one of the many "Undead" movies or hunting down an old copy of Hustler and taking in a fecal-cartoon.

My favourite of his work so far

[Chris_Docker · 10/10 · 15 December 2007]

Drawing Restraint 9 (5 stars)

Director Matthew Barney Writer Matthew Barney Stars Matthew Barney, Björk Certificate tbc Running time 135 minutes Country USA / Japan Year 2005

Matthew Barney is a visual artist. Think 'film' as in the sort of media that might attract the attention of the Turner Prize or, its American equivalent (with an international remit), the Hugo Boss award. The most recent Hugo Boss award was won by a Brit, Tacita Dean (who has also been shortlisted for the Turner). Barney won it back in 1996 and has garnered a string of prizes since. So you could say that, in his field, he's comfortably at the top of the heap.

I mention all this because you may come to a review of his film with the question, "But will I like it?" And while that question is still open, it is probably rather better than, "Is it any good?"

Although Barney has his critics, even in the art world, to suggest his stuff is rubbish is maybe a bit like saying Meryl Streep can't act: her finished work may vary in quality but it's the product of someone at the top of their profession. But even if Drawing Restraint 9 is great art – of which this reviewer is unqualified to say – it is reasonable to wonder whether going to the cinema should entail the attitude of mind that going to see a Tate Modern multi-media application might demand. Surely a film-goer has every right to judge a fill as a movie rather than an art exhibit?

Drawing Restraint 9 demands more – or perhaps a rather different type – of application to the type of movie commonly at art house cinemas. Yet I recall the delightful shock of seeing Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou – that unapologetically surrealist outburst that resulted from his friendship with Salvador Dali. Or Andy Warhol's Screen Tests, that reveal astonishing depth in the personalities instructed not to move or blink for four minutes. More recently Béla Tarr's masterpiece, The Man From London, where the scenery carries a force as powerful as the plot or characters. These people dared to use moving pictures in a different way, and cinema is (in my opinion) better for them.

Matthew Barney has little or no interest that I can deduce in conventional cinematic form. When it comes to film, it is as if he started with a blank page, or another medium upon which to bend like sculpture and ideas. Fans of his earlier Cremaster cycle of films will recognise a certain organic development in his films: the plots and persons seems to grow in a way that mimics the growth of crystals, or of speeded up plant growth, all redolent with arcane or sexual symbolism.

Drawing Restraint 9 seems to me a more rounded and mature work than his Cremaster opus. It is more tightly structured and coherent. The viewer can piece together the threads of stories by patient observation. The work of a Japanese whaling ship and various issues surrounding its trade, and the Shinto marriage ceremony on board. During an intense lightning storm the tea ceremony / marriage ceremony takes on disturbing dimensions that set our mind and senses racing.

Barney's (real life) partner, Bjȍrk also combines many new ideas in creating the music. The main suite is written for the sho, one of Japan's most ancient instruments. She worked with Noh theatre scholars to develop musical settings for a poem to produce an authentic, haunting sound.

Drawing Restraint 9 is no more an easy cinematic experience than a Rodin is a catchy picture postcard. But it rewards serious attention and its lyrical and elegiac qualities make the journey an interesting one. The strange visual experiences will leave an impression even on viewers that don't delve beyond the surface. Those that do, will find Barney has drawn his cinematic sculpture on sound ideas and symbols of substance.

pretentious propaganda

[int32 · 2/10 · 25 March 2006]

"Drawing Restraint 9" is a kind of movie one either loves or hates; fortunately or not, I left it with a strong feeling of wasted time and of being thoroughly stuffed with "killing whales is bad" propaganda. Aesthetically, the movie could have been pleasing, especially its first half, until it is not clear that every action portrayed serves as an allegory of various aspects of whale hunting. Until then, it might be slightly amusing to look at daily chores of japan workers, but later it becomes obvious that anything that appears on the screen is a propaganda, and no single frame is an exception. I use the word "propaganda" because the movie uses basically the old morality play device, where "good" and "bad" are not deduced in the course of action but are set in stone. Probably it's just me, but I find such type of art shallow and preconceived, even when it's all about the noble (no sarcasm here) quest of protecting the environment.

In my opinion it is a cardinal sin when a movie material is stretched out without any justification, for the sake of stretching only. In my opinion, "Drawing Restraint 9" could've been easily fit into 75 minutes, but has a torturous length of 2 and 1/4 hours. Yes, there were interesting shots, but there were not enough of these to leave 15-minute gaps of nothingness without notice. The movie has no standard scenario, and there's no evolution of characters, but neither it is a documentary, it's rather a kind of conceptual installation. That's an unusual form for a movie, but it still can be viewed as art even when the concept is as simple and naive as here. OTOH I also believe that the director should've had some honesty and did not pretend that it could be only delivered in no less than 135 minutes.

And yes, the music score mostly resembled whale sounds. How surprising.

2/10.

Beautiful images, gorgeous music

[johnnykocktail · 9/10 · 27 June 2006]

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.

Abstract art with elements of S&M

[kutsin · 1/10 · 12 May 2006]

Slow and nice images changed one another, with sometimes annoying music (you know Bjork) in background, for the first 75% of the movie. If you did not have enough sleep, that's a good time.

But, in the last 20% of the movie director decides to bring idea of re-birth, re-incarnation or else, through S&M images: "spiritual lovers" are cutting each others bodies with knives. For me it was very much disturbing and actually changed general impression of blend of abstract art and images of modern Japanese mystery.

Operator and director are great, but weird.

Did not enjoy it at all.

Amazing Restrained Beauty

[aaron-375 · 10/10 · 30 June 2006]

WARNING!!! SPOILERS THRUOUGHT!!!

After having seen bits and pieces of Mathew Barney's Cremaster cycle, one expects more of the same. But then he offers up Drawing Restraint 9, and I came away, well, blown away. Cremaster was such a convoluted, mythological universe, that I tend to find it unlikely that anyone could produce a body of work that is equally accomplished, thought out, and sprawling.

Watching the opening scene of Drawing Restraint, I think of Chris Marker's filmic essay, Sans Soleil. Mostly because of the reference to Japan's Holiday, Coming of Age Day. The dancing seems to be lifted right out of Marker's film. The pacing of both films is actually pretty similar, as is the content. As Marker chose seemingly disparate images and concepts to illustrate a larger commonality in his films, Barney conflates his ideas about artistic restraint with a fantasy about whaling.

An extraordinary chain of events occurs in this film. A convergence of mythic proportions, in true Mathew Barney style. A whaling moratorium is lifted in Japan. Bjork and Barney's "occidental guest" characters arrive, inexplicably, by prearranged fishing boat trips in the middle of a Japanese ocean on a whaling ship. The combination of a violent storm, loosely Japanese and heavily stylized costuming, a large petroleum jelly sculpture, a riveting and very aquatic tea ceremony, some bizarre dismemberment, and a giant raw ambergris log, culminate in a human-to-whale transubstantiation for these occidental guests.

The pacing of the film is generally slow for its first two thirds, with beautiful imagery of a twenty year old whaling vessel seductively competing against this restrained pace. Then the storm comes, the petroleum begins to consume the entire ship, and there is no more restraint.

At its core, this is what the film is about. Barney's obsession with restraint, and his fearful desire to let it go. The Coming of Age Day dance speaks about evolution, from childhood to adulthood. This evolution is echoed throughout the film. The first song, composed by Bjork and Barney, speaks of a "million year old fossil", which is then lovingly wrapped, and sent as a thank you for lifting the whaling moratorium (again, restraints are released, allowing for a thriving economy and plenty of food in a previously depressed community, ethical issues of whaling notwithstanding). The petroleum and steel sculpture, The Field, goes through a constant evolution, from liquid petroleum, to something a little more solid, changing shape, having a spinal cord like object removed from it, briefly housing the ambergris log, then utterly falling apart and being melted down into liquid again. All of this preparing, changing, waiting, is the restraint part of this equation. Then something, in this case ambergris and a storm, catalyzes a strange metamorphosis, and Bjork and Barney turn into whales.

Barney must have undergone a similar process with this work, this ninth part of the Drawing Restraint whole being the product of that internal metamorphosis I am imagining for Barney. In all its grandiosity, all of Barney's timid pomp, its actually a very honest expression of fear. Fear of release, accomplishment, potential energy, and the unknown.

possessing/becoming, organic matter/being and what we do with it

[janna-19 · 16 April 2006]

Some of the themes that emerged for me: Minimizing use of natural resources in order to maximize the full capacity of human intelligence.

The role of ritual as a focuser of intent that enables utter, literal transformation.

Profound understanding of other forms of life via literal experience of what they have lived (in this case, using that species' human interaction as an entry point for understanding).

Civilized human society's penchant for consuming nature to benefit materially while suppressing our (well documented) ability to shift shape as a means of enriching our intelligence immeasurably.

I noticed how my mind didn't even question the industrialized hierarchy presented in the film, the ritual of common human toil or even the pageantry that has traditionally accompanied industrial "progress." But I had to struggle with the ritual that became the vehicle of transformation for the two main characters.

What seemed like an unnatural act turned out to be only the human part of what is encountered by the species our hero and heroine sought to be. Their yearning to BE and experience that species seemed very natural.

Horrible

[xglimmershinex · 1/10 · 30 May 2006]

I thought it would at least be aesthetically beautiful. It was slow, pretentious, and boring. I almost fell asleep. There are some decent songs, but there is this one song at the end which is just some guy yelling out "Yaowwww!" while someone taps randomly on a wooden object. That being said, there are some pretty songs, but it's not worth seeing hte movie over. Go on itunes (they have the album), preview it, and choose the good ones.

Half the movie is some guy making tea. Well, that's a slight exaggeration. But you'll see what I mean if you see it. That being said: DON'T SEE IT!

Stunning

[istelle · 10/10 · 3 May 2006]

This is a beautiful film, it has a very Japanese rhythm and pace to it, which may be hard to appreciate for certain American audiences. It is dreamy, serene and disturbing. Full of symbols and deeper meaning. I had no idea what it was about, and was glad I did not read anything about it beforehand. The film is pure enough to be filled with individual associations and references, which is a mark of high art form, at least for me.

Bjork is no longer a girl, she is a woman: time and giving birth have laid their mark. She looked stunning to me.

If you watch it - let it wash over you.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen

[rui-franco · 1/10 · 7 May 2006]

This has got to be one of the worst movies I've ever seen! There were people leaving the theatre, others were falling asleep (ok, it was a late night show)... This is a no-sense movie, one of those who can make you never want to see an out of mainstream picture again. I would love to watch the making-off of this movie as I am deeply interested on what goes on the minds of the authors of such garbage. Do they laugh when they create all this ridiculous stuff or do they actually think they're doing something interesting? I wonder... The soundtrack is awful apart from some instrumental stuff that reminds you of a previous Bjork album. Even if you're a fan of Bjork's music, stay home. It's the best thing to do. The little, tiny, pieces of nice music are no reason for you to go out and submit yourself to this torture. God!...

don't compare this with other films

[elektra_808 · 8/10 · 8 October 2007]

DR9 shouldn't really be thought of as a film in the traditional sense of the word, nor should it sit alone, its part of a greater work of art, the clue is in the title! To really appreciate the film it helps to see it in relation to sculpture and the way objects interact within a chosen space. also the resonance of ritual and especially Japanese shinto can bring a certain amount of meaning and clarity to some of the more obscure sequences in the film. even though it seems very 'serious and arty' on the surface ,there is humour and romance and the film! try not to see it as a finite static thing, but something that can change according to the multiple layers you allow yourself to perceive it on.

false fake pretentious unoriginal and mr barney should apologize to jodorowsky

[oniongod-2 · 1/10 · 25 June 2007]

This film is massively boring and pretentious. There is only one good moment when a sailor shaves Mr Barney's(think the purple dinosaur-less pretense) eyebrow. The music is relentlessly cloying-it is sad that Bjork, someone with so much inner beauty, has been brought down to pretentious falsity in her art. The pomp of the tea service makes a beautiful ritual seem vapid. the mythology and culture are not respected in this film they are lifted. Not just from Japanese culture but from another filmmaker...(stay tuned) In a perfect "art imitates life" moment-the crew of the ship finds a giant piece of sh*t. Which is what the audience found in the theatre. There are some set pieces which are very composed and arty without heart---then…prepare for spoilers-I'm talking to you MR BARNEY.

The Emperor has no clothes! Mr. Barney you have been outted! I have seen Jodorowsky's HOLY MOUNTAIN. And your thin, fake veil of BS has been lifted. You have stolen your images your style and your ENTIRE ART CATALOGUE from this man. Now that HOLY MOUNTAIN has been released FINALLY let's hope the powers that be at the Art Councils of the world STOP FINANCING YOU! Poor Jodorowsky-lost in a financial battle with the Beatles Lawyer when he is the Lennon/McCartney of film-making. And BTW while Jodorowsky is the Beatle-YOU ARE THE MONKEES! A cheap thin soulless rip off only liked by facile kitschy college freshmen. And BTW I am a filmmaker. If you are interested in making a reality film-I will legally fight you in a ring defending Jodorowsky-you, defending outright thievery.

Ichibana Scrimshaw

[tedg · 4 January 2007]

As with reading all comments, you will find it useful to know where the writer is placed. I have watched the first "Cremaster" and Barney's entry in the "Destricted" compilation. That latter piece was a failure in my mind. There's not much overlap between the sculptural and the cinematic anyway. One is more on the noun side, the other on the verb side: contextual, environmental. I admire that he tried to find that commonality in the erotic, but the result is rather sophomoric in all but the initial choices.

This isn't wonderful either. I hold hope for the later "Cremaster" experiences, that there will be some valuable conversation between us. This is a wholly different thing altogether. This man has found his love, and has created a valentine. Its a conversation, an intercourse between the two of them. The value we are expected to get is in witnessing rather than participating.

The forms he has chosen are all Japanese because they have developed an observational distance with the ordinary things of their life we do not have.

The basic urge here is the melding of the two lives: Bjarney, but with careful, artificial constraints. We have the merging of the tea ceremony with the whaling ritual; the reversal of rendering blubber to whaleoil to the coagulation of pseudoblubber from pseudowhaleoil.

We have the melding of humans with whales, ambergris with pearls, constructing whale icons with consumption...

And of course the conflating of Barney's sculptural objects with Japanese ritualistic ones. I am not well enough versed in details of Japanese esoterica to know where one starts and the other stops, but I suppose in his view it is perfectly balanced, one "restraining" the other; one "drawing" the other, each drawing restraints on another level: tea to whale and so on.

The most engaging sequence is at the beginning: three phenomenal episodes: one the wrapping of two packages, bodies; a second the procession of the whale oil returned and ritual construction thereupon; and finally a dive into the water seeking marine truth, revealing a hot blade (seen later as the humans transform into whales).

Its not for us, they made this. Its a conversation of love and commitment between the two. We've only crew members.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

Imaginable and Amazing

[ycontrol360 · 10/10 · 4 July 2006]

I am a big fan of Barney, and Bjork as my Idol. This aside, when i found out about the movie (quite awhile ago) it was a must see for me immediately. But lost hope when i saw the screening information, never to be released to home video and scarcely showing in theaters mostly in art Galleries along with Barney's exhibit. A few days ago i was looking in the Austin chronicle and saw it was plying at the Dobie for 4 days. i went on Sunday at 4. I thought i would never see this in my life. The movie was amazing my mouth open the whole time, amazing imagery and representation. at the end of the movie nobody in the theater could leave their seats, there was so much to absorb and i felt like i woke up out of a deep meditation. And on my drive home i tried to Analyze it without the help of the pamphlet for what i came up with i was right but there was so much more behind it.

The movie as a whole is a deep representation of the Japanese culture and their relationship with nature around them and how it all recycles in the end. A theme of Reincarnation if you will. Even the scene of the morbid leg dismemberment between Barney and Bjork was beautiful. And the music added to the aura and atmosphere to the movie as a whole. As for the no speaking i think this added to the understanding and representation as a whole.

In all i highly recommend this movie to all who love deep meaning and imagery in a beautiful art film. -Ian2000

This film makes me ill

[pulp_post · 1/10 · 15 May 2010]

I've just watched Drawing Restraint 9 again, maybe I did this because I wanted to give it a second chance... But no, it certainly doesn't deserve any praise from me, and for the second time it made me feel ill.

Why? Because Matthew Barney probably thinks that it is OK to make "art" out of extinction, death and ignorance, and thinks it's a nothing to make a movie inside the Nisshin Maru, the protagonist of more than a deep scar on Earth's oceans history. By stating that his film is apolitical and refusing to take any position about whaling, he can be paired with all the brainless creatures that "think" that wearing a fur coat is OK, taking this sort of cheap appeal as something better than Nature and the Beauty of living beings.

This film would be as bad as one refusing to take a position about human rights or such... so no Mr Barney, as much as I love good photography and while I think that your film has some merit in this particular point, it soon becomes very ugly when the slaughter you didn't want to make explicit becomes as clear as you metaphors about it... And please, once it was filmed inside the ship itself, don't expect me to believe that it carries any anti-whaling message underneath it...

Shame, shame, shame on you Mr Barney. It's not art - it's just something cheap and very ugly at the end of the day.