The Cremaster Cycle

The Cremaster Cycle is an avant-garde series of five feature-length films, created by renowned artist Matthew Barney over an eight-year span from 1995 to 2003. Although it might strike a rather unusual chord to traditional movie goers, The Cremaster Cycle is a testament to Barney's boundary-pushing conceptual artistry. The narrative doesn't follow a conventional linear style, ordering the films not chronologically, but guided by the development of sexual differentiation in the human body. Hence, the cycle begins with Cremaster 1 and culminates in Cremaster 5.

Barney himself appears multiple times within the films, ordinarily in the role of mythical characters undergoing rites of passage and partakes in symbolically loaded challenges and quests. He skillfully shapes these outlandish narrative set pieces into an ostentatious, operatic visual style that consistently fascinates and sometimes confounds, but never fails to captivate.

The films intentionally stake out a dreamlike symbolic space for what Barney calls the "Cremaster field" — an abstract plane upon which sex differentiation occurs, and whose possible outcomes include both genders as well as the intersex possibilities in between. This is where the title comes from; "cremaster" is the name of the muscle that regulates the position of the testes in the human body.

Each of the five films inhabits this symbolic plane, yet each tells a distinct, self-contained story borne out of Barney's cogent thought process. The locations are distinct too. The American West, Harry Houdini's escape acts, the Mormon religion, a Northern Ireland motorcycle race, the opera house; all become stunning backdrops, loaded with allegorical potential and visually stunning imagery.

But The Cremaster Cycle is more than just a cinematic spectacle. It implicitly poses an important question: when you partake in art, are you there to decode its symbolism, or just let the magic of abstract expression wash over you? Barney's films are densely packed with the symbologies, references, and allusions that may only make sense to him.

Cremaster 1 embodies a lyrical exploration of the embryonic state and takes place in a futuristic Goodyear blimp. Cremaster 2 is a mystical narrative bio of murderer Gary Gilmore set across the stark landscapes of the Rocky Mountains. Cremaster 3 involves a magnificent sequence in the Chrysler Building and utilises Masonic folklore to explore creation and downfall. Meanwhile, Cremaster 4, set on the Isle of Man, aligns biological and mythological processes of development, from beehive to motorbike race. Lastly, Cremaster 5 is a mournful opera set in Budapest's Opera House and thermal baths, a lavish tribute to Houdini and an exploration of escape and transformation.

The Cremaster Cycle is an alloy of film, sculpture, drawing, photography and performance. For Barney, each film is not a separate entity, but elements of a multifaceted narrative structure. His meticulously crafted settings, costumes, and props are later exhibited as sculptures in their own right, whereupon the narrative context of the film adds layers of symbolic density to the standalone art pieces.

The Cremaster Cycle is undoubtedly a unique cinematic experience that defies traditional categorization. Stunning in its visual acrobatics, labyrinthine in its symbolism, and audacious in its execution, each film lures the viewer into Barney's unparalleled imaginative world.

Barney's experimental, non-linear narration can easily disorient viewers seeking a traditional movie experience. It's rather an expedition into a mysterious, strangely beautiful dream realm, filled to the brim with allusions that touch upon themes as diverse as the biological, historical, spiritual and geological.

In summary, The Cremaster Cycle represents a sprawling, grandiose journey through the inner workings of Matthew Barney's mind, as he attempts to visualize and fulfill this unique, multi-part artistic vision. It is unlike anything in conventional cinema and is best approached as one might approach an art exhibit: with an open mind, ready to experience an artist's uncontained vision and interpret the meaning individually.