Dir/scr: Matthew Barney.US-Jap. 2005. 143mins.

Matthew Barney is one ofthe superstars of the American art world. He has held exhibitions everywherefrom the Guggenheim to the Venice Biennale, and has won numerous prizes. His CremasterCycle, made between 1994 and 2002, was shown - and rhapsodised over - inboth cinemas and museums. Drawing Restraint 9 is arguably his mostambitious project yet: a two-and-a-half hour feature set aboard a Japanesewhaling ship.

Hugely imaginative andbeautifully shot, Barney's latest opus will be feted by the same critics andcurators who so admired Cremaster. The presence of Icelandic diva Bjork,who wrote the 'folktronic' soundtrack and appears alongside Barney,lends added curiosity to a film likely to prove both tantalising and dauntingto a general audiences.

The downside fromdistributors' point of view is that Drawing Restraint 9 (which premieredat an exhibition in Japan in the summer of 2005 before screening at the VeniceFilm Festival and in Toronto) exists in a purgatorial world between fine artand commercial cinema. Paris-based Celluloid Dreams is handling internationalsales and has already secured sales to Spain and Australia.

The film is bound to surfacein cinemas elsewhere while also continuing its double life in galleries andmuseums. Only theatrical rights are likely to be available. Ancillary remainsfirmly in the hands of Barney's art rep, The Barbara Gladstone Gallery. Theartist's video work is generally sold exclusively in limited editions -something likely to make most buyers pause.

Drawing Restraint was filmed aboard the Nisshin Marin, apparently theonly Japanese factory whaling ship still in existence. Western audiences may besurprised that he seems to endorse the whalers' activities.

Early on, the project isabstract in the extreme. We're shown hands wrapping a fossil as a song sung byWill Oldham plays on the soundtrack. The lyrics are taken from a whaler'sletter to General McArthur, sent in July 1946. (One of the themes of the filmis the clash between east and west.)

There are then shots of theshipyard and of characters in white fatigues marching along the beach. On theship, a small ocean of vaseline jelly is poured into a cross-shaped mould. Thisviscous goo takes the duration of the film to gel.

Bjork, first spotted on therocks looking like a little red pixie on leave from a Brothers Grimm story, isbrought aboard. So is Barney himself, wearing a huge, furry overcoat and bluejeans and looking like a refugee from a 1970s exploitation flick.

There is a sense of ritualas the western couple are cleaned. Barney has his hair and eyebrows shaved.Bjork bathes in a bath full of lemons. The duo are then dressed in traditionalJapanese costume, but with a few surrealistic accoutrements (webbed feet,shells, mammal fur.) They have tea with the captain who, during the film's onlypassage with conventional dialogue, explains the history of the ship.

Then, as a storm ragesoutside, Barney and Bjork, locked together in an embrace, cut away each others'flesh. Instead of blood, whale blubber oozes from the wounds.

Barney's DrawingRestraint series started many years ago. Artist Barney (an ex-high schoolfootball star and an exceptional athlete with a Houdini-like ability to wriggleout of chains or jump off bridges without doing undue damage to himself)attempted a series of bizarre tests. The idea was to explore the links betweencreativity and resistance. The more daunting the obstacles he placed in his ownway, the more Barney excelled.

Here, the self-imposedchallenge is to turn a still functioning factory ship, complete with truculentand suspicious-looking workers, into an art space.

Just occasionally, whilewatching Barney's work, it's hard not to be reminded of the old Tony Hancockfilm, The Rebel, with its scenes of the British comedian bicycling roundsplashing paint while pretending trying to be an abstract artist. Barneycertainly inspires embarrassing flights of pretentiousness from critics.

Nonetheless, his ingenuity,craftsmanship and intellectual rigour are never in doubt. Part of thefascination of his work is the way he draws on such a wide range of sources,everything from horror films like The Shining to Noh theatre and thenarrative sculptures of Josef Beuys (with whom he shares an unholy obsessionwith animal fat and womb imagery).

In his own deadpan fashion,Barney can also be slyly humorous. Bjork's soundtrack - all squeals and murmurs- has an oddly hypnotic effect. The symbolism here may be hard to unravel, thevoyage may have its longeurs, but the imagery is so startling and beautifulthat many viewers will stay aboard for the duration.

Production company
Restraint LLC

International sales
Celluloid Dreams

Producers
Matthew Barney
Barbara Gladstone

Cinematography
Peter Strietmann

Production design
Matthew D Ryle

Music
Bjork

Main cast
Matthew Barney
Bjork