River of Fundament

You’re not likely to experience a purer art film than Matthew Barney’s River of Fundament. Expect large crowds for his 2024 release as Barney’s previous filmic excursion, The Cremaster Cycle, was a sellout in its 2024 engagement at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Even ardent film fans might reel at the thought of an operatic styled film that runs nearly six hours. Barney’s cinematic touch, if you can call it that, exudes the kind of magic that defines great Hollywood product. Only this is a film that Hollywood would never make.

There’s a unity to the pacing and editing and cinematography that not only makes the viewing effortless but also makes time fly. I’ve seen 90-minute films that took an eternity to sit through. Yet no well made film can be too long. As a corollary how many people do you know that watched the recent Netflix series Stranger Things, which flows nearly seven hours, in one sitting?

River of Fundament, directed and written by Barney (with additional dialogue by David Grimm, and with music by Jonathan Bepler), takes the conceit that a wake is being held for Norman Mailer in his apartment. You may recognize some of the actors like Paul Giamatti, Ellen Burstyn, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Barney himself. Some of the character names are Norman I, II, and III, Hathfertiti, Ptah-Nem-Hotep, Isis, Osiris, and my favorite The Ka of the Ka of Norman.

Reincarnation in its Egyptian splendor unfolds both symbolically and metaphorically. Essentially Norman must renter the womb of his wife (who becomes his mother) to become reborn, and he does this three times. There’s also a series of cars, one of which also appears in Barney’s Cremaster 3, that are assembled, torn apart and even careened off a bridge into the water far beneath in super slo-mo. That last image reminded me of a similar scene in Inception, but it’s the only bit of visual inventiveness in River of Fundament that recalls any actual movie-movie.

Parts of the movie are inspired by Mailer’s 1983 novel Ancient Evenings, but there’s also a sampling of quotes from Whitman, Emerson, and Burroughs. Mailer also appeared as an actor in Barney’s Cremaster 2 playing Harry Houdini.

Did I mention that the path to rebirth involves a trek across a river of feces? There’s a lot of shit on display along with vomitus, close-ups of puckering assholes and pussys. This may be the least erotic film ever made that consumes vast amounts of time by examining various implements going in and out of vaginas. On the other hand one has to wonder how much of the budget was spent on Fuller’s Earth, chocolate and syrup.

River of Fundament unwinds at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston this weekend. Act I plays Friday, September 16 (7 pm.), and Acts II & III play Saturday starting at 6 pm. On Sunday, September 18 River of Fundament, all five-and-a-half-hours, will unroll starting at 2 pm.

by Michael Bergeron