Cremaster 3

Matthew Barney's 2002 film is the longest entry in the five-part Cremaster cycle and runs over three hours. The narrative is built around the construction of the Chrysler Building, presented not as a location but as an organism inside which different forces collide. Barney is not a filmmaker but a contemporary artist, and this was made as gallery work; it proceeds by the logic of symbol and material. The sculptor Richard Serra plays himself; the sections with Aimee Mullins are among the film's most discussed. The passage set in the Guggenheim Museum is staged like a game of ascending levels. There is almost no dialogue, and the film refuses to explain. Who it's for: viewers of contemporary art and experimental cinema. Who it's not for: anyone wanting narrative, or avoiding bodily and bloody imagery.