River of Fundament / Festwochen link
Director: Matthew Barney
Writer: Matthew Barney, David Grimm
Based on: Norman Mailer‘s novel Ancient Evenings
Cast: John Buffalo Mailer, Milford Graves, Dave Bald Eagle, Madyn Coakley, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ellen Burstyn, Deborah Harry, Salman Rushdie
Part of: Wiener Festwochen

Plot:
Norman I (John Buffalo Mailer) is on his way to be reborn. But a lot of things have to happen for that to be possible. First Norman has to wade through a river of shit to get to his own wake. But that’s only the beginning.

When I got the ticket for this film (which is part new footage, part footage from earlier outdoor productions), I knew that there was a high chance I wouldn’t like a five-hour, modern, surreal opera based on a Norman Mailer novel. But I wanted to give it a shot anyway. Well. Now I can say with confidence that I don’t like this five-hour, modern, surreal opera based on a Norman Mailer novel. I walked out after the first act.

The movie starts with a fecal river that someone sloshes through. Generally there are a lot of faeces and sloshing through said river and I really could have done without that. I mean, I generally don’t get the obsession with shit or fecal humor some people have, but I really didn’t see the point here. It’s probably something deep and philosophical, but honestly I don’t care enough to give it more thought. At one point, a (literal) piece of shit is wrapped in gold and turns into a penis. Admittedly, that was hilariously absurd.

If it was only the shit river that I didn’t like, I would have totally finished the film. But unfortunately that is not all. The music – apart from a beautiful song sung by Madyn Coakley – was unnerving. I felt almost attacked by it – and that is not a nice feeling to have and certainly not one I’m willing to sit through for hours.

But worst of all was that – after Van den vos – there was yet another (pre-)teen in a white nightgown who had a weird relationship with an adult man. Hathfertiti I wasn’t nearly as sexualized as the girl in Van den vos, but it was clear that she was the child version of Norman’s wife (Norman remained an adult throughout). Then they withdraw to the bedroom where Hathfertiti puts on a cow mask and lies down on the bed. Norman crawls under the bed (thank fuck they had that much decency) and falls through the floor into the shit river where he finally crawls out of a cow’s belly. So, basically he was reborn by his own wife when she was still a child. Ugh.

There were good things to the film. The sets were really nice. I liked the colors in particular and even the shit river looked kinda cool. I also thought the combination of several source materials was an interesting idea. And the cast was good. But in the end the cons outweighed the pros – and it wasn’t even a close call.

Summarizing: Nope.