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Barney baffles in 'Drawing Restraint 9'

Matthew Barney straddles an amorphous creative line. His five-film "Cremaster Cycle" epic — one of the most buzzed-about art events of the past decade — is at turns brilliant and beguiling, cloying and self-indulgent. Together running just under seven hours, the nearly dialogue-free films stand as visually and symbolically resplendent masterpieces of contemporary art, each frame a brilliant composition saturated with potent ambiguity.

IFC Films 'Drawing Restraint 9' 2 out of 5 stars The verdict: Mired in pretense and self-indulgent goo. Director: Matthew Barney Starring: Matthew Barney, Björk, Shiro Nomura, Mayumi Miyata, Susil Osoma Run time: 135 minutes Release date: March 29, 2006 Rating: Not rated, but contains mature subject matter and disturbing images. Masterpiece or madness? The 'Cremaster Cycle' is the talk of the art world. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Drawing Restraint 9'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Or not. After all who is Barney to ask audiences to stick with him for seven hours with no promise that at the end, they'll be able to enter — and understand — his singular symbolism?

With "Cremaster" Barney succeeds, never quite forcing everyone to cop to his naval-gazing narcissism by providing just enough, well, art.

Not so with "Drawing Restraint 9." Barney steps over the line with his latest film. The 135-minute journey takes us along the usual visually exquisite path but disintegrates into a pretentious, self-glorious romp between Barney and Björk, the Icelandic pop star and Barney's real-life girlfriend.

Though Barney maintains the writing and directing credits, Björk composed the soundtrack and co-stars with Barney.

Indeed, though Barney posits his new movie within his long-term "Drawing Restraint" series of performances and sculptures about the artist's preoccupation with resistance as the catalyst to creation, "Drawing Restraint 9" might as well be Barney and Björk's big adventure on a Japanese whaling ship.

Like the "Cremaster" movies, Barney's latest film unwinds at a glacial pace through seemingly disparate events. And all the typical Barney events are there. Foremost is the artist's preoccupation with ritual, from the opening parade of traditional Japanese dancers through an industrial shipping area to a handful of white-clad Japanese women who dive for clams to the Japanese deck-hands who methodically dice a giant sculpture of solidified petroleum jelly (a Barney creation we see poured into place at the beginning of the film, petroleum jelly being one of the goo-crazy artist's favorite kinds of goo).

But the real ritual is saved for Barney and Björk. After being ferried separately out to the Japanese whaler Nisshin Maru, each goes through a ceremonial bathing and is attired in ornate, magnificent costumes that resemble Shinto marriage dress. Then they meet in windowless chamber in the hull of the ship where a tea master performs some sort of courtship or wedding ceremony.

Foul weather kicks up, and the couple are left on their own, continuing the ritual in a self-indulgent trajectory. Liquid petroleum jelly fills the cabin as Barney and Björk sprout whalelike blowholes and proceed to slice away at each other's lower bodies, which have become suddenly blubber-encased.

Barney's artistic vision was just fine without Björk's romantic interlopings. Too bad Barney didn't think so.