Drawing Restraint 9 (2005)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Matthew Barney

Writer:

Matthew Barney (writer)

Release Date:

29 March 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Fantasy

Plot:

The film concerns the theme of self-imposed limitation and continues Matthew Barney's interest in religious rite, this time focusing on Shinto. |

Plot Keywords:

Sculpture | Japan | Digit In Title | Whaling | Number In Title

Cast

Shigeru Akahori	...	Barber
Naomi Araki	...	Ama
Matthew Barney	...	Occidental Guest
Björk	...	Occidental Guest
Hisashi Fujita	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Shunsuke Fujita	...	Ambergris Procession
Yuta Fukunaga	...	Ambergris Procession
Genishi Hakozaki	...	Ama
Akimi Hamada	...	Bathhouse Attendant
Yuya Hama	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Yoshio Harada	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Yokio Hyakuda	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Akiyo Ikeda	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Tomo Isino	...	Rendering Tank Attendant
Sachiyo Ito	...	Dressing Room Attendant
Tatsuro Iwahara	...	Tanker Truck Operator
Hideko Kadoyama	...	Ama
Ryutaro Kawasaki	...	Ambergris Procession
Emi Kikuchi	...	Dressing Room Attendant
Shinya Kimura	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Tashiaki Kitaura	...	Tanker Truck Operator
Hisato Koyama	...	Ambergris Procession
Meg Kuwahara	...	Ama
Koji Maki	...	Harpooner
Hiroji Mano	...	Transport Boat Driver
Yushin Maru	...	Catcher Vessel
Yusaku Matayoshi	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Toshiyuki Miura	...	Catcher Vessel Captain
Mayumi Miyata	...	Sho Player
Takaya Nagaze	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Jun Naito	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Kazuhisa Nakato	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Takashi Nishina	...	Flensing Deck Crew (as Takeshi Nishino)
Daichi Nogami	...	Ambergris Procession
Shiro Nomura
Tomoyuki Ogawa	...	Captain
Masaki Ohoe	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Junko Okamura	...	Ama
Yuki Okawa	...	Ambergris Procession
Kazuo Okuda	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Satomi Oohata	...	Ama
Sosui Oshima	...	Host
Satoshi Oyanagi	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Toshiaki Ozawa	...	Petrolatam Spirit
Shigeharu Sakai	...	Tanker Truck Operator
Motomu Sarashiya	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Souta Sudo	...	Ambergris Procession
Shusei Sugawara	...	Wandering Crewman
Jiro Tabichi	...	Transport Boat Driver
Kei Takahashi	...	Seasick Boy / Ambergris Procession
Hizoraku Takaya	...	Rendering Tank Attendant
Makoto Tanaka	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Ikkoh Terashima	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Rumi Tsuda	...	Gift Wrapper
Izuo Watanabe	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Shunichi Yamaguchi	...	Flensing Deck Crew
Shizue Yamamoto	...	Bathhouse Attendant
Kazuo Yamazaki	...	Tanker Truck Operator
Hiromaru Yasuda	...	Flensing Deck Crew

Runtime:

135 min

Country:

USA | Japan

Language:

English | Japanese | Icelandic

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Portugal:M/16 | Australia:MA | New Zealand:R13

Filming Locations:

Nagasaki, Japan

Company:

Restraint LLC

Soundtrack:

Gratitude

Ichibana Scrimshaw

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.