Matthew Barney's 'River of Fundament'

[martin]

I saw the new film/artwork/masterpiece of Matthew Barney yesterday and thought I should create a new thread for this...

Has anyone else here already gone on this "cathartic" and "unsettling" adventure? After the 6 hours you are completetly flashed and you know that this was a unique experience incl. music and images which are almost not from this world...

Zeena Parkins played the harp and the accordeon and next to Maggie Gyllenhaal and Paul Giamatti Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) also played an important role... who knows, maybe we get a duett on the next album

Btw, during the first intermission break I found myself standing next to Mr. Barney and politely asked him to sign my programme. He was very willing to do so but unfortunately didn't have a pen... oh well, these artists...

[benjicoq]

I'll see it this winter it's aired in Paris I loved the exibition at the France library last year with snippets of this new work

[benjicoq]

got my ticket. i'm pretty excited

[martin]

got my ticket. i'm pretty excited

YOU DEFINITELY CAN BE PRETTY EXCITED!!!

"Je croise les doigts" that Matthew Barney will be there... I also saw Jonathan Bepler and the actor who plays/sings Seth... and you will "meet" Zeena Parkins again...

[Germanyon]

ive seen it also here in vienna, was so fancyyy and im so happy i brought a huge picknick snack set, gosh that was long

[paganpoet]

I was at the recent London premier at the beautiful ENO Coliseum Opera House (where incidentally, the last time I was there was in 2001 for the 'Vespertine' tour. ), and so it was lovely to be back for this.

Here's my formal review of 'River Of Fundament' though...

Poo,
poo,
gold leaf,
gold leaf boner,
toilet monster buggery,
poo,
fanny,
bum,
sewer,
cow cesarean/sleeping bag,
funeral,
wake,
lovely music,
poo,
DEBBIE HARRY (?!),
boobs,
poo,
space docking,
cars,
festival,
poo,
POO (!),
awesome Chrysler car destruction,
bin-liner arse dispenser,
poo,
gold leaf-lined ambulance,
poo,
Maggie Gyllenhal tit milk,
automated racing car,
poo,
poo,
Jeez Maggie Gyllenhal can't sing,
awesome stomp-dancing all-girl dance troupe,
poo,
giant smelter & lead works sculpture,
fighting mechanics,
poo,
pregnant lesbian porn,
eyeball anus,
double ended funnel-butt mechanic,
poo,
poo,
poo,
under table cabbage loving,
erotic diarrhea,
house boat,
poo,
dry-dock giant sewage ritual,
poo,
dairy chain rimjob,
poo,
midget tossing,
crab-walk dining table pissing lady,
poo,
poo,
raining bison blood,
poo
... 5 hours later... wut?! 0_o

7/10.

___

In all seriousness though... while I'm glad I can say I saw this and it was his most polished and cinematically elegant to date (all the poo aside), and most certainly an epic production triumph, it sadly just didn't resonate even half as much as either the Cremaster Cycle or Drawing Restraint 9.

Personally, I blame the decision to narrate it as an opera. At times it was beautifully delivered and really powerful... but at other times it just came off silly. Such is the risk with opera though.

Amazing achievement in terms of scale and production, and it's important that things like this exist. However, it's not so important to actually need to sit through nearly 6 hours of it on this occasion.

[martin]

^ Love your review! A lot of poos there... for me the 6 hours went by like the blink of an eye though... and we had buffets during the breaks...

[m.thr.n]

Poo,
[...]
fanny,
bum,
sewer,
cow cesarean/sleeping bag,
[...]
bin-liner arse dispenser,
[...]
pregnant lesbian porn,
eyeball anus,
double ended funnel-butt mechanic,
[...]
under table cabbage loving,
erotic diarrhea,
[...]
dairy chain rimjob,
[...]
midget tossing,
crab-walk dining table pissing lady,

The first time I saw it, I thought Matthew’s work was the closest I’d ever come to seeing my dreams. It’s incredibly similar to the inside of myself.

[faber]

^Noooooo

[mrain]

driving up to los angeles this weekend to see this piece with a 4umer

im needing inspiration for something so hopefully this will suffice it.

[error]

I saw the movie (Amsterdam, incl, Jonathan Bepler Q&A) and the exhibition (Munich). Ain't got a clue what it's all about… but I somehow loved it.

The music / sound design by Jonathan Bepler is amazing.

[bartaa]

Sounds supremely offensive… must be "art", something these days seems to mean bisected large animals, provocative expression, or prurient frontal nudity with underage children. One used to evaluate art not by how confused it made you feel, but what motivated it. Subtext was once important.

[mrain]

I saw the movie (Amsterdam, incl, Jonathan Bepler Q&A) and the exhibition (Munich). Ain't got a clue what it's all about… but I somehow loved it.

The music / sound design by Jonathan Bepler is amazing.

im tweeting and been commenting to their official twitter/instagram to release a soundtrack.. i did like the lines and the operatic voices....even zeena parkins' harp with the violin guys.....

and may i say i did like when nefertiti sang to norman....that was a beautiful piece

[SILHUETTE]

well, this movie is extremely demanding.... if you want to have at least some idea and connect to it, you should study Ancient egyptian mythology, norman mailer's book ancient evenings, walt whitman's poetry and history of american car industry... extremely demanding. many layers. some things started making sense only during my third viewing (i simultaneously checked the script published on the official movie site, decoding symbols and finding info about each particular element in the movie usually connected to egyptian gods or american history) and yet, under this hypercomplicated intellectual structure and artistic forms lay those old metaphysical questions: what is life? what is immortality? what is the meaning of our days here? extremely dark movie (yet with a pinch of hope) and very painful at the same time. barney hid simple ideas under many layers difficult to digest. but if you are into detailed research, you will be rewarded and you will realize how important and clever artist he is. this movie is almost a milestone of art. but!!!
yet, the montage is not satisfactory sometimes, the first third drags way too much (only tuning the instruments lasts for 30 minutes!) and though bepler music is fantastic, i hated how it is mixed with random dialogues (without script, i could not understand most of the dialogues and music is destroyed by them) and all kind of sounds coming from the scenes. such stupid mistakes! otherwise it would be one of the most revolutionary movies ever.
7/10
p.s. i think i found one instance related to his separation from björk, but that may be only my personal feeling. barney buried his pessimism and pain under the fundament well. those two have "opposite remedies", as björk sings. but barney was definitely affected very deeply by their end as reflected in the river of fundament. his next movie "redoubt" is for him what is for björk "utopia", it is completely free of "toxic tumours" of river of fundament.