Drawing Restraint 9

"A tapestry of sensuous, striking and sometimes disturbing imagery, "Drawing Restraint 9" marks the latest cinematic visit to the wacky world of experimental artist Matthew Barney, whose five-film "Cremaster" cycle recently globetrotted the fest and rep circuit. Barney's key collaborator this time round is his wife, popstar Bjork, who co-wrote and performs most of pic's music and stars opposite Barney as a visitor to a Japanese whaling ship. The Icelandic siren's involvement may lure extra viewers to the rocky shores of "Restraint," but Barney's defiantly recondite aesthetic will hold the pic in the same kind of restricted distribution pattern as "Cremaster."..."

"Near the end of Matthew Barney's visually spellbinding film "Drawing Restraint 9," a work that might be described as his "Moby-Dick," the voice of his co-star, Bjork, repeats a life-affirming motto in broken musical phrases: "From the moment of commitment, nature conspires to help you." <br /><br />Those are some of the few words heard in this stately, ritualistic film, which takes place mostly on the Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling ship afloat in Nagasaki Bay. The ship looms as a metaphor both for a whale and for Japan. "Drawing Restraint 9" is steeped not only in Japanese seafaring lore but also in centuries-old Japanese ritual, which is compared in the film's earliest scenes with more frivolous examples of contemporary pageantry. Frivolous or not, all human activity in the film is informed by a ceremonial formality, and no task is undertaken casually..."

"Matthew Barney's petroleum-jellied installations made him an art-world darling, yet his career as an avant-garde filmmaker seems birthed from the pragmatic aim to showcase work without requiring a visit to the Guggenheim. Better in theory than in practice, his overhyped, five-film Cremaster cycle was a maddening meld of unregulated vanity, cameos that earn double-takes (Ursula Andress, Norman Mailer), and vibrantly warped spectacle. Barney's pouring, plodding, posturing imagery can be a visceral punch in the teeth, but his negligent defiance of film grammar and naive editing can make all the Big-Idea symbolism feel shallow, or maybe pointless..."