Drawing Restraint 9
Encyclopedia
Drawing Restraint 9 is a project by visual artist Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney is an American artist who works in sculpture, photography, drawing and film. His early works were sculptural installations combined with performance and video...

 consisting of a feature length 35mm film, large-scale sculptures, photographs, drawings, and books. The Drawing Restraint series consists of 16 numbered components and related materials. Some episodes are videos, others sculptural installations or drawings. Barney created Drawing Restraint 1-6 while still an undergraduate at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 and completed Drawing Restraint 16 in 2007 at London's Serpentine Gallery
Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...

. With a soundtrack composed by Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

, Drawing Restraint 9 is an unconventional love story set in Japan. The narrative structure is built upon themes such as the Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

 religion, the tea ceremony, the history of whaling
Whaling
Whaling is the hunting of whales mainly for meat and oil. Its earliest forms date to at least 3000 BC. Various coastal communities have long histories of sustenance whaling and harvesting beached whales...

, and the supplantation of blubber with refined petroleum for oil.

The film primarily takes place aboard the Japanese factory whaling vessel, the Nisshin Maru
Nisshin Maru
The 23-year-old, 8,030-ton vessel is the primary research vessel of the Japanese whaling fleet. It is a converted stern trawler and is the world's only whale factory ship. It is also the largest member, and flagship of the seven-member whaling fleet, headed by research leader Shigetoshi Nishiwaki,...

, in the Sea of Japan, as it makes its annual journey to Antarctica. Two storylines occur simultaneously on the vessel: one on deck and one beneath. The narrative on deck involves the process of casting a 25 ton petroleum jelly
Petroleum jelly
Petroleum jelly, petrolatum, white petrolatum or soft paraffin, CAS number 8009-03-8, is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons , originally promoted as a topical ointment for its healing properties...

 sculpture (one of Barney’s signature materials), which rivals the scale of a whale. Below deck, the two main characters participate as guests in a tea ceremony
Japanese tea ceremony
The Japanese tea ceremony, also called the Way of Tea, is a Japanese cultural activity involving the ceremonial preparation and presentation of matcha, powdered green tea. In Japanese, it is called . The manner in which it is performed, or the art of its performance, is called...

, where they are formally engaged after arriving on the ship as strangers. As the film progresses, the guests go through an emotional and physical transformation slowly transfiguring from land mammals into sea mammals, as they fall in love. The petroleum jelly sculpture simultaneously passes through changing states, from warm to cool, and from the architectural back to the primordial. The dual narratives, the sculptural and the romantic, come to reflect one another until the climactic point at which they become completely mutual.

Drawing Restraint 9 premiered at the 62nd Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...

 and was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...

 in September 2005. IFC Films
IFC Films
IFC Films is an American film distribution company based in New York, owned by AMC Networks. It distributes independent films and documentaries under the IFC Films, Sundance Selects and IFC Midnight. It operates the IFC Center....

 acquired the U.S. theatrical rights to Drawing Restraint 9 and distributed the film to screen in 18 cities across the U.S. in the fall of 2006.

Narrative & Imagery

The film opens with the careful, ceremonial wrapping of two unidentifiable organic objects in several layers of carefully folded decorative paper, an activity known in Japanese as tsutsumi or orikata
History of Origami
The history of origami followed after the invention of paper, and as a result of paper's use in society. Independent paper folding traditions exist in East Asia and Europe, and it is unclear whether these evolved separately, or had a common source....

, sealed with twine and gold field emblems and finished with a sliver of white shell. The centre strips of the field emblems, a recurring symbol in Barney's works, are then pulled off, a frequently repeated motif throughout the film. The scene moves to Nagasaki bay where a celebratory procession of dancers, animals and floats approaches the docks as the crew of the whaling ship finish construction on the shore.

After the opening credits, a field emblem mould is assembled on the deck of the Nisshin Maru and filled with molten petroleum jelly from one of the vehicles in the celebratory procession. One of the 'Occidental Guests', played by Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

, waits on another shore with her gaze directed out to sea. The other Occidental Guest, Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney is an American artist who works in sculpture, photography, drawing and film. His early works were sculptural installations combined with performance and video...

, waits on a docking rig in a large fur coat. In a third location a group of young women at the water's edge, pearl divers, apply grease to each other's skin in preparation for the dive. Separately, the Occidental Guests are picked up by small motorised vessels and carried towards the Nisshin Maru. The pearl divers enter the water with their collection barrels, hyperventilate to improve their lung capacity and make the first dive. Mayumi Miyata
Mayumi Miyata
is a Japanese player of the shō, a traditional Japanese mouth organ. She is the most widely recorded and best internationally known soloist on this instrument.She is a graduate of the Kunitachi College of Music, where she majored in piano...

 is shown playing the shō over the scene with a string of pearls entwined in her hair and hanging down her exposed back.

The pearl divers come across a long, floating mass of compacted organic material, a sculpture from Barney's repertoire titled and here representing ambergris
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales....

, an extremely valuable organic material produced as waste by whales. Whilst they keenly examine it, the Nisshin Maru leaves dock in a festive cloud of coloured ribbons and excited, screaming children. In the ship's galley, the chef cleans his knives and utensils, boils shrimp and cuts blocks of grey, layered jelly into plated portions using a field emblem mould. The central strip of the top layer of each field emblem is incised in order to allow the ship's crew, to whom the jelly is served, to pull it away. The chef goes through the ship's mess, filling each central void with shrimp and pomegranate seeds.

As the small vessels ferrying the Occidental Guests pull up to the ship, an activity on deck is shown in which a man with two large stamps, in the style of a Japanese calligraphic seal, repetitively and rhythmically inks the instruments and imprints large rectangles of canvas. The Female Guest is led to descending stairs in the deck. She looks out over the prow of the vessel and finds her way down into the labyrinthine bowels of the ship. Occasionally she comes across small rocks on the corridor floor wrapped with red twine, which she appears to intutitively interpret as warning markers to prevent her from losing her way. Her path eventually takes her to a room with a large, metal, cubic bath where two Japanese women in blue serving garb, amah, attend to her. They pour a basket of lemons that have had a central strip excised into the water and remove the Guest's clothing before she steps into the bath. The Male Guest is lifted to the ship's deck in a large, winched basket and led to the same descending stairs. He searches for the correct door and arrives at the ship's barber, who carefully shaves off the entiretry of Guest's substantial beard with a straight-razor. The petroleum jelly in the field-mould starts to solidify on deck. The Male Guest, shorn and dressed in denim, is guided by twine-wrapped rocks to a room separated by a large antique screen on which a traditional fishing scene is painted.

In the whaling bay the crew, bantering in Japanese, 'harpoon' a mock whale made from a black bin bag painted with the stylised features of a whale and stuffed with whole shrimp that burst out of the ruptured plastic after a direct hit from a crewman. A building component, reminiscent of a spine and covered with the debris of the shrimp, is victoriously hoisted aloft on a harpoon. In the screened room the Male Guest takes off his shoes and falls asleep. The barber, carrying his shaving kit and swigging from an open can of beer, slips in quietly and shaves a wide strip through the center of the Guest's hair.

The next morning, the harpooner vessel Yushin Maru sets out. The harpooner eventually snares the log of ambergris
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales....

 and the Nisshin Maru winches it up into the flensing
Flensing
Flensing is the removing of the outer integument of whales. English whalemen called it "flenching", while American whalemen called it "cutting-in".-Open-boat:-Shore and Bay whaling:...

 bay through the back of the ship. Below deck, the Female Guest wanders through the corridors in a thin towel following her bath. She is encouraged to sit before a mirror in another preparation room by an amah, who carefully combs and arranges her hair into an ornate, traditional style using pieces of organic marine material arranged on combs, pins and boards. Another amah attends to the Male Guest, replacing his shorn eyebrows and hair with similar objects. Both Guests are stripped and redressed in ceremonial costume of skins and furs, with a base layer of damp fabric resembling thick kelp
Kelp
Kelps are large seaweeds belonging to the brown algae in the order Laminariales. There are about 30 different genera....

. The female Guest's eyebrows are shaved, her face painted with a thick layer of white foundation, and her lips painted over with the small, red pout of a Shinto
Shinto
or Shintoism, also kami-no-michi, is the indigenous spirituality of Japan and the Japanese people. It is a set of practices, to be carried out diligently, to establish a connection between present day Japan and its ancient past. Shinto practices were first recorded and codified in the written...

 bride. Both Guests also carry a large conch shell strapped to their backs, flensing knives with horn handles and a small bone instrument resembling a folded fan. Meanwhile on deck, the field emblem sculpture has hardened in the mould and the crew use flensing tools and a winch to strip the central piece out of the mould.

In awkward bone sandals, both Guests make their way to the traditionally-appointed tea room. They wait together in silence in the ante-chamber, a niche in the corridor, whilst the workers examine the ambergris on deck and the Host prepares his organically-fashioned instruments for the tea ceremony
Tea ceremony
A tea ceremony is a ritualised form of making tea. The term generally refers to either chayi Chinese tea ceremony, chado Japanese tea ceremony, tarye Korean tea ceremony. The Japanese tea ceremony is more well known, and was influenced by the Chinese tea ceremony during ancient and medieval times....

. The sliding door to the tea room is pulled ajar and the two Guests look searchingly at each other to decide how to proceed. The Male Guest kneels at the door first, places his shoes outside the room and enters in the agonisingly slow ritual style of placing his fan one pace ahead to where he will shuffle forward, in his restrictive ceremonial garb, acknowledging the tokonoma
Tokonoma
Tokonoma , also referred to simply as toko, is a Japanese term generally referring to a built-in recessed space in a Japanese style reception room, in which items for artistic appreciation are displayed. In English, tokonoma is usually called alcove. The items usually displayed in a tokonoma are...

 alcove before he reaches his place in front of the host. The Female Guest enters and repeats the process. The Host enters and the Guests thank him for his invitation - the Male Guest in English and the Female Guest in Icelandic, the actors' native languages. The tea ceremony is enacted and the Host describes the history of the Nisshin Maru vessel as the crew carve the excised part of the field sculpture into solid blocks and render them in the ship's furnace. The plastic 'spine' from the excised part is lowered into the ship's hold.

As the sun goes down outside, the two Guests shift gradually closer to each other in the empty tea room. On deck the ambergris
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales....

 is anointed with sake and the remainder of the spirit is doled out to the crew. They toast the ambergris
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales....

 with their sake and night falls, bringing a heavy storm.

In the furnace room, the needle on a pressure gauge vibrates towards the end of the scale and the rivets on the machinery give. The ship begins to flood with molten grease. In the infirmary, a small Japanese boy with an extrusion of white fur from his mouth vomits grey liquid. The Female Guest falls as the ship pitches and the Male Guest leans over to help her up and remove her ceremonial hood. The two examine each other, finding strange holes on the back of each other's necks which they lovingly caress. They passionately kiss as the room begins to flood and the storm rages outside. With their flensing knives they alternate cutting deep strips from the flesh of the other's legs at a slow, ritualistic pace with very minimal apparent sensation of pain, at one stage rolling such a strip into a rough imitation of sushi
Sushi
is a Japanese food consisting of cooked vinegared rice combined with other ingredients . Neta and forms of sushi presentation vary, but the ingredient which all sushi have in common is shari...

 and eagerly consuming it. On deck, the ambergris
Ambergris
Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray or blackish color produced in the digestive system of and regurgitated or secreted by sperm whales....

 log is inserted between the two halves of the field emblem sculpture into the void left by the excised strip. A troupe of small children wearing white robes carry in a box and set of plastic ritual equipment shaped as whaling tools. They also carry two wooden barrels, one containing shrimps and other a viscuous grey substance. Two of the children proceed to cement the shrimp around the base of the ambergris using the grey substance to bind it. The crew later return to winch the ambergris back out of the sculpture, leaving only the cemented shrimp base. At dawn the mould is then removed from the sculpture, which then collapses into a large pile of congealed petroleum jelly with the assistance of the long-handled flensing knives, and the ambergris is lowered back down into the hold to lie alongside the plastic 'spine' where it begins to disintegrate. The remainder of the field emblem sculpture is dismantled by knives and winches and the ambergris has attained the shape of the plastic spine it lies joined with.

Back in the tea room, the Occidental Guests remove the last of each other's legs by slicing at the thigh. They wearily embrace, then dive beneath the water together. Their severed stumps become the waving tails of whales. A clown-like figure with matted hair and coloured face-paint, identified by Barney as the petrolatum spirit, approaches the ambergris with a hose and raises a new flag on deck. The Occidental Guests complete their metamorphosis into whales.

At the coast, as the Nisshin Maru continues its journey at sea, a winch drags a wedge-shaped block up the sloping bay to the docks. A pearl diver surfaces with her mouth dripping with pearls. The docking slope collapses under the weight of the block and pearls spill into the ocean, landing on the ocean bed in the perfect form of two overlapping circles. The film ends on Mayumi Miyata
Mayumi Miyata
is a Japanese player of the shō, a traditional Japanese mouth organ. She is the most widely recorded and best internationally known soloist on this instrument.She is a graduate of the Kunitachi College of Music, where she majored in piano...

 playing the shō.

Soundtrack

The Drawing Restraint 9 soundtrack
Drawing Restraint 9 (album)
The Music from Drawing Restraint 9 is a soundtrack created by Björk in collaboration with her partner Matthew Barney for his film of the same title. For this project Björk traveled to Japan to study ancient Japanese music...

 was composed by Björk
Björk
Björk Guðmundsdóttir , known as Björk , is an Icelandic singer-songwriter. Her eclectic musical style has achieved popular acknowledgement and popularity within many musical genres, such as rock, jazz, electronic dance music, classical and folk...

 and was released on One Little Indian, July 25, 2005. It features the shō (Japanese mouth organ) playing of Mayumi Miyata
Mayumi Miyata
is a Japanese player of the shō, a traditional Japanese mouth organ. She is the most widely recorded and best internationally known soloist on this instrument.She is a graduate of the Kunitachi College of Music, where she majored in piano...

, who appears playing her instrument near the start and conclusion of the film. Vocals for the opening scenes – featuring the English translation of the text of a letter from a Japanese citizen to General MacArthur thanking him for lifting the U.S. moratorium on whaling off the nation's coasts adapted by Barney and set to the harp (Zeena Parkins) and celeste (Jónas Sen) by Björk – were provided by Will Oldham
Will Oldham
Will Oldham , better known by the stage name Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, is an American singer-songwriter and actor. From 1993 to 1997, he performed and recorded under variations of the Palace name, including the Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music...

.

See also

  • Drawing Restraint 9 Soundtrack
    Drawing Restraint 9 (album)
    The Music from Drawing Restraint 9 is a soundtrack created by Björk in collaboration with her partner Matthew Barney for his film of the same title. For this project Björk traveled to Japan to study ancient Japanese music...

  • The Cremaster Cycle
    The Cremaster Cycle
    The Cremaster Cycle is an art project consisting of five feature length films, together with related sculptures, photographs, drawings, and artist's books; it is the best-known work of American visual artist and filmmaker Matthew Barney....


External links


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