Cremaster 5 (1997)

User Rating:

6.9/10   

Director:

Matthew Barney

Writer:

Matthew Barney (writer)

Release Date:

24 October 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Musical | Drama

Plot Keywords:

Fifth Part | Art | Cremaster Cycle | Budapest Hungary | Art Film

Cast

Ursula Andress	...	Queen of Chain
Matthew Barney	...	Diva / Giant / Magician
Joanne Rha	...	Queen's Usher / Fudor Sprite
Susan Rha	...	Queen's Usher / Fudor Sprite
Amy Chiang	...	Fudor Sprite
Mei-Chiao Chiu	...	Fudor Sprite
Michelle Ingkavet	...	Fudor Sprite
Yoko Kuroiwa	...	Fudor Sprite
Kim Nghiem	...	Fudor Sprite

Runtime:

55 min

Country:

USA

Language:

Hungarian

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:12 (original rating) | UK:12A (re-rating) (2003)

Filming Locations:

Budapest, Hungary

Company:

Barbara Gladstone Gallery

Movie Connections:

Followed by Cremaster 3 (2002)

The least interesting of the Cycle by some distance

In the interests of full disclosure, I would like to say that I looked up the explanation for 'Cremaster 5' on the Guggenheim Museum official website. Primarily this was because I don't have the faintest idea what it was about.

I tried, God knows I tried. I've sat with Barney's occasionally maddening, frequently sublime creations through thick and thin, through the easily comprehensible ('Cremaster 4'), through the obscure but entertaining (the last hour of 'Cremaster 3') and through the plain old baffling (all of the rest of 'Cremaster 3'). But 'Cremaster 5', supposedly the big thematic finale to the Cycle, is beyond my ken.

I've never liked or fully understood opera, and this is an opera, so that's score one against me. There's also a first appearance (chronologically, at least) of Barney's maddening habit of putting major historical figures in his work without giving the audience the slightest hint of who they may be. Just as Gary Gilmore was represented by a naked female zombie in 'Cremaster 3', so Harry Houdini pops up in 'Cremaster 5', played by... erm... actually, I'm not sure who it was. It wasn't Norman Mailer, which is a shame.

And yet Barney's witty approach to casting rears its head here nonetheless. Ursula Andress apparently came out of retirement to play the Queen of Chain, a tragic figure apparently in love with Barney's Magician. (Thanks, Guggenheim) I want to make some snarky comment about Barney always casting himself as the love interest of glamorous, iconic women like Andress or Aimee Mullins in 'Cremaster 3', but why shouldn't he? He's an artist, he has a libido, the whole film cycle is about sexuality and he's not being notably hypocritical about it.

Unfortunately, "not hypocritical" is about the nicest thing I can say about 'Cremaster 5' - that, and the camerawork is excellent. Even the final moments, the most lavish and mythic of the film, are an overblown replica of a scene achieved far more economically and humourously in 'Cremaster 4'. It's a disappointing ending (middle. Whatever) to a frequently magical series.