River of Fundament (2014)
Release Year: 2014
Nation: United States
Alternative Title: N/A
Director: Matthew Barney
Writer: Matthew Barney
Production & Genre
Awards & Similar
Awards: N/A
Similar:
Keywords
Keywords: opera, gold, loss of loved one, pregnancy, idaho, surreal, musical, surrealism, crow, sculpture, avant-garde, modern art, spirtuality
Story
Visionary artist Matthew Barney returns to cinema with this 3-part epic, a radical reinvention of Norman Mailer’s novel Ancient Evenings. In collaboration with composer Jonathan Bepler, Barney combines traditional modes of narrative cinema with filmed elements of performance, sculpture, and opera, reconstructing Mailer’s hypersexual story of Egyptian gods and the seven stages of reincarnation, alongside the rise and fall of the American car industry.
Summary
Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler's cinematic epic 'River of Fundament' reimagines Norman Mailer's novel 'Ancient Evenings', set against the backdrop of Egyptian mythology and the American car industry's rise and fall. This three-part film blends traditional narrative cinema with performance art, sculpture, and opera, depicting Mailer as protagonist, reincarnating thrice in his wife Hathfertiti's womb, emerging from a river of feces beneath their Brooklyn Heights apartment. Each incarnation attends its own wake in the Mailer residence, transforming into a hedonistic spectacle where literary figures mingle with ancient gods. Meanwhile, a parallel narrative follows an automobile's rebirths across America: REN at a South LA car dealership; KHU along Detroit's River Rouge; BA culminating in a Brooklyn Navy Yard battle, transforming the vehicle from a '67 Chrysler to a 2001 Ford Crown Victoria.
