The Thousands

Only a Yale graduate, ex-jock could make a movie loosely based around the positioning of the sexual organs during embryonic differentiation. The quintet of films dubbed the Cremaster Cycle by artist Matthew Barney is an audacious piece of cinema that has a tribe of avid fans along with a horde of ardent haters.

In short, Barney uses the aforementioned stages of embryonic differentiation as a template to guide characters’ actions and the film’s wider trajectory. Within this micro-cellular environment he explores mythology, history and geography.

This in turn creates a dense weave of symbiology (neoglism!) between the five films that even the best code cracker would have difficulty getting their head around. **Cinematically beautiful, the film stars (amongst others) Norman Mailer, sculptor Richard Serra, and on again off again Slayer drummer David Lombardo, improvising drums to the sound of a flurry of bees! Once in a blue moon is this series of films screened.

You may hate me for watching it but you have to see it once in your lifetime. Just sit quietly in the womb of the cinema and gestate. P.s. The Chauvel is also screening Drawing Restraint 9, Barney’s latest film which stars his real life weirdo/partner Bjork.