To begin with, Matthew Barney's Cremaster 3 does have a plot; however, he can probably explain it best, so here is the official synopsis of the film, straight from the horse's mouth:

CREMASTER 3 is set in New York City and narrates the construction of the Chrysler Building, which is in itself a character - host to inner, antagonistic forces at play for access to the process of (spiritual) transcendence. These factions find form in the struggle between Hiram Abiff or the Architect, and the Entered Apprentice (played by Barney himself), who are both working on the building. They are reenacting the Masonic myth of Hiram Abiff, purported architect of Solomon's Temple, who possessed knowledge of the mysteries of the universe.

Reprinting that isn't laziness on my part, because if I tried to explain what the movie's about, it would be incredibly vague and confusing, but that's not to say I wasn't able to follow it. To wit: you will understand what's going on in the movie, you just may not be able to explain it. There's certainly a discernible plotline, but it isn't conveyed in any conventional way, and you have to slow yourself down to the rhythm of the movie before it will start to emerge. On the other hand, this is one of the 'purest' motion pictures I've seen in a long time, because the story is conveyed entirely through the visuals. In the entire three hour running time, there is one, barely discernable line of dialogue at the very end. Otherwise, the movie is propelled by the juxtaposition of images, and what incredible images they are! Bizarre, beautiful, disturbing, terrifying -- a few of the words that come to mind trying to explain the way the movie looks.

This is the final installment of Barney's epic, five part Cremaster series, which he made completely out of order. This chapter technically takes place in the middle of the series but officially is its grandiose finale. It is a major work of art, literally. Barney began his career as a sculptor, and then moved on to performance art, and these films are extensions of both. He developed the film not with a script but with a brief outline that gave way to shot lists, which in turn became the sequences that tell the story. "The genesis of these projects is in the object," he said in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine last year. "My concerns have to do with developing an 'object narrative'... I feel like the biggest part of my job is to create a situation where a character doesn't need to be directed, to create an enivronment with a set of problems for that character to walk in and solve."

I find that I'm grasping at straws here, trying to describe this movie. Let me call to mind just a few of the moments that I haven't been able to shake. There's the dead, decomposing girl with a mutilated vagina who exhumes herself from the dirt early in the film, only to be crushed in a sort of motor derby in the lobby of the Chrysler building. There's a scene in the Chrysler building's cloud club that is eerily hilarious, sort of as if the bar scene in The Shining were played as slapstick. A horse race with decomposing horses. A beautiful amputee woman (Aimee Mullins) walking on glass legs. At one point, the Entered Apprentice (played by Barney himself) is subjected to a ritualistic dental exam that will have you cringing in ways you couldn't possibly expect. And the dizzying exterior shots depicting the construction Chrysler building, which climax in the eruption of multicolored ribbons from the building's tip, are simply stunning. The film cost barely four million dollars, every one of which is up on screen. It was shot on 24p High Definition Video cameras, which a.) probably helped cut down on the cost and b.) contributed to the rich texture of the image.

As I said, there is no dialogue; the soundtrack is made up of textured sound banks that range from ominous to unpleasantly grating. There are also several traditional Celtic songs, which tie into the film's mythic bookends on the Isle of Man in Scotland. At one point, a character plays a harp that is built out of an elevator. From my descriptions, you may think that there's much that is reminiscent of Kubrick or David Lynch; amazingly, nearly everything registers as completely original.

There will be plenty of people who won't care to see a film like this, and some that do will surely dismiss it as an exercies in redundant, narcisistic masturbation (exacerbated by the fact that Barney is the star of the piece). There will be people who fall asleep in the middle of it, and other people who will walk out. All valid reactions, to a point. I'm curious as to whether this work is very personal to Barney, or if it's merely a string of ideas that fascinate him -- in which case I imagine he's only amused by his detractors.

In any case, he has it made; he's the youngest artist (at 37) to ever have a solo exhibit in the Guggenheim (or to shoot a movie there, for that matter); he's able to make these movies without any fear of box office failure or audience rejection; and to top it all off, he's actually talented, and people respond to and respect his work. I'm one of them, and now I'm spent. If I haven't convinced you to see the movie by now, then you probably shouldn't see it at all.