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Drawing Restraint 9 (2005)

tomatometer

57

Average Rating: 5.4/10
Reviews Counted: 47
Fresh: 27 | Rotten: 20

Some of the images are striking, if confusing, but the film is unbearably slow and tedious.

50

Average Rating: 4.9/10
Critic Reviews: 14
Fresh: 7 | Rotten: 7

Some of the images are striking, if confusing, but the film is unbearably slow and tedious.

audience

68

liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 2,607

My Rating

Movie Info

Filmmaker and artist Matthew Barney collaborated with his wife, noted musician Björk, for this ambitious experimental feature. Aboard a Japanese fishing vessel named the Nisshin Maru, a crew of laborers constructs "the Field," a sculptural mold in the shape of an oval that is filled with melted petroleum jelly. As the crew slaves over the project, a man and woman (played by Barney and Björk) are brought on board, and while the ship sets sail the couple prepare to be married in a traditional

IFC Films

All Critics (53) | Top Critics (14) | Fresh (27) | Rotten (20)

Drawing Restraint 9 belongs to an endangered species of experimental film that walks the line between challenging and alienating its audience.

September 8, 2006 Full Review Source: Detroit Free Press | Comment
Detroit Free Press
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Sitting through the film's tedious unfolding can be an interesting mental exercise.

June 1, 2006 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Like John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy, a surreal, vaguely plausible explanation of why two people are crazy about each other.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Boston Globe | Comment
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Doesn't advance the Barney oeuvre an inch past where he left it with his massive, megalomaniacal opus known as the Cremaster series.

May 25, 2006 Full Review Source: Washington Post | Comment
Washington Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Moby ick.

May 18, 2006 Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | Comment
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Allegedly all these incidents connect symbolically in Barney's mind, but in the viewer's, they thud, inert and separate as stones.

May 12, 2006 Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | Comment
San Francisco Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A work as vast, monstrous, and mysteriously graceful as a whale.

September 25, 2007 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comment

Conventional storytelling may not be Barney's thing, but he has a superb cinematic eye, an incredible imagination and the wherewithal to make his visions happen.

March 9, 2007 Full Review Source: Kansas City Star | Comment
Kansas City Star

However enigmatic this all might be, there is no denying that Barney has assembled some rivetingly beautiful images.

March 1, 2007 Full Review Source: Film Journal International | Comment
Film Journal International

Offers no restraint on the writer/director's penchant for weird esoterica.

August 25, 2006 Full Review Source: Boulder Weekly | Comment

A refreshing break from mind-numbing Hollywood movies, but it may fail to win you over

August 12, 2006 Full Review Source: Movie Habit | Comment
Movie Habit

What is undeniable is that this, even more than Barney's previous work, is a film of outrageous, startling ingenuity and beauty.

August 7, 2006 Full Review Source: Not Coming to a Theater Near You | Comment
Not Coming to a Theater Near You

It is a series of lyrical ambiguities filtered through the prism of Japanese religious and whaling cultures that defy literal interpretation even as they are sculpted into physical significance.

August 4, 2006 Comment
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Throughout, Barney drowns the screen in arresting images ... that nail your eyes to the screen.

July 8, 2006 Full Review Source: Austin Chronicle | Comment
Austin Chronicle

Hugely tedious...this turgid, opaque, whale-obsessed fiasco might be described as one big, festering hunk of blubber.

June 13, 2006 Full Review Source: One Guy's Opinion | Comment
One Guy's Opinion

Drawing Restraint 9 is Barney again creating something tenaciously abstract, but this time the result is more serene and approachable.

June 6, 2006 Full Review Source: FilmJerk.com | Comment
FilmJerk.com

You're either on the boat or off the boat with something like this. But for those willing to brave the open water, it's an awe-inspiring ride.

June 2, 2006 Full Review Source: Oregonian | Comment
Oregonian
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Drawing Restraint 9

Matthew Barney, I command thee: Relinquish the distribution rights to this film and deliver them unto The Criterion Collection & Janus Films! (YEAH!!, I know it's fine art, and that would devalue the price of the DVD's out there. STFU!) Okay, Drawing Restraint 9 is what Cronenberg's Stereo/Crimes Of The Future should

September 17, 2011
Austen Rudnick
Austen Rudnick

Super Reviewer

Pretty pictures at 24fps. And Ronit hates it! All you could want in a movie except plot and characterization.

September 24, 2008
ixchow
Jim McCann

Drawing Restraint 9 Quotes

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