Drawing Restraint 9 (2005)
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.
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.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 2,654
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
Mar 29, 2005 Wide
IFC Films
- Official Site
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All Critics (53) | Top Critics (15) | 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.
Top CriticSitting through the film's tedious unfolding can be an interesting mental exercise.
Like John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Double Fantasy, a surreal, vaguely plausible explanation of why two people are crazy about each other.
Doesn't advance the Barney oeuvre an inch past where he left it with his massive, megalomaniacal opus known as the Cremaster series.
Moby ick.
Allegedly all these incidents connect symbolically in Barney's mind, but in the viewer's, they thud, inert and separate as stones.
A work as vast, monstrous, and mysteriously graceful as a whale.
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.
However enigmatic this all might be, there is no denying that Barney has assembled some rivetingly beautiful images.
Offers no restraint on the writer/director's penchant for weird esoterica.
A refreshing break from mind-numbing Hollywood movies, but it may fail to win you over
What is undeniable is that this, even more than Barney's previous work, is a film of outrageous, startling ingenuity and beauty.
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.
Throughout, Barney drowns the screen in arresting images ... that nail your eyes to the screen.
Hugely tedious...this turgid, opaque, whale-obsessed fiasco might be described as one big, festering hunk of blubber.
Drawing Restraint 9 is Barney again creating something tenaciously abstract, but this time the result is more serene and approachable.
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.
Audience Reviews for Drawing Restraint 9
Super Reviewer
Okay, Drawing Restraint 9 is what Cronenberg's Stereo/Crimes Of The Future should have been. This is honestly one of the most ambitious and beautifully made films ever made. I cannot put into to words how gloriously minimalist this movie is, yet how grand its imagery is. It's a paradox of a visual experience.
That being said, this film is 95% imagery and atmosphere with maybe 7 minutes of dialogue. It's quite effective, and doesn't get annoying like Cronenberg's earliest efforts did. (Matthew Barney was actually open to having some spoken lines in the movie!) What's said is superficial, though. The importance is in what is communicated through the scenery and score. The movie is built around the ethical dilemma inherent in whaling, but most of this is established in the visual happenings throughout the early portions of the film. The half-half is focused on a Shinto tea ceremony attended by Matthew Barney and Björk's characters. It's plot is Kafka-esque... if the viewer is Kafka's archytypal main character. (Basically, that's my clumsy way of saying that the viewer doesn't know what's going on but the characters in the movie do. The intended audience of this film should slowly be able to piece together the themes and narrative as the film progresses.)
...Then it transcends the most cringe-inducing body horror film ever!! I'm absolutely stumbling through this review, since the movie simply has to be seen. I loved it, but text can't do it justice. Um, there really were no technical flaws; come to think of it. Maybe it's not a likable film, but it's as perfect and unique as a cinema experience gets. (At the very least, check out the fantastic score. There's a great song performed by Bonnie "Prince" Billie in the opening scene.)
Super Reviewer
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