'Drawing Restraint 9' can be an interesting mental exercise

Visual artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney is a maestro of supersized spectacle. And "Drawing Restraint 9" — the follow-up to his esoteric, symbolically fecund five-film "Cremaster" cycle — continues his predilection for beautifully perverse images fixed in non-narrative repetition.

IFC Films 'Drawing Restraint 9' B- The verdict: Anything but restrained. 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

At 2 hours and 15 minutes, it's likely to tax the patience of even the most dedicated Barney aficionado. Still, sitting through the film's tedious unfolding can be an interesting mental exercise. And Barney's real life mate, Björk, contributes a lot to that trancelike quality — both with her oddly striking on-screen presence and a fittingly quirky soundtrack that mixes world music reveries with her whispers-to-screams vocalizing.

"Drawing Restraint 9" has its roots in a series of Barney's installations and performances that go back to the 1980s. Most of the film takes place aboard the Nisshin Maru, a Japanese whaling ship. Barney and Björk are a pair of "Occidental visitors" who come together on the high seas to engage in a ritualistic mating dance that leads to a magical metamorphosis.

Toward that end, the couple are religiously groomed and adorned in wildly intricate Japanese garb, then partake in a traditional Shinto tea ceremony before finally being immersed in a watery cabin — where they brutally cut into each other's limbs with knives and devour each other's raw flesh like sushi. Meanwhile, the choreographed Nisshin Maru crew fiddles with a mammoth sculpture made out of 25 tons of petroleum jelly and hoists up a giant lump of ambergris.

What all this means certainly has something to do with Barney's artistic conceptions of freedom, transgression and transformation. But unless you're a fan of his work or of Björk's music, "Drawing Restraint 9" may seem like a very long voyage toward a vague destination that only they can fully comprehend.