For those interested in fine arts, spectacle and decadence, the 2005 highlight of The Canterbury Film Society will likely be the complete five film Cremaster cycle by Matthew Barney (right), the 37-year-old sculptor / performance-artist / filmmaker with the massive retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum and a two-year-old daughter with rock artist Bjork.

Screenings start April 11
www.canterburyfilmsociety.org.nzFor those interested in fine arts, spectacle and decadence, the 2005 highlight of The Canterbury Film Society will likely be the complete five film Cremaster cycle by Matthew Barney (right), the 37-year-old sculptor / performance-artist / filmmaker with the massive retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum and a two-year-old daughter with rock artist Bjork.

Screenings start April 11
www.canterburyfilmsociety.org.nzWhile he is probably the contemporary art world's biggest star, his art is hardly common currency: after this opportunity to see the Cremaster cycle, it is unlikely that a second chance will surface. (When the first installment, Cremaster 4, was released on video, it sold in an edition of 10 at $200,000 a pop.) This rarity is a pity, because Cremaster 3 in
particular possesses many of the populist elements that assured the success of classic drive-in fare: zombies, giants, cheetah girls, mobsters, demolition derbies, buff young bodies, awesome SFX make-up, slapstick, gore, and rock and roll. It also brings to completion one of the most complex and subversive artworks of the past decade.

The Canterbury Film Society society screens other old, rare, classic, offbeat or otherwise noteworthy films - films that you couldn't otherwise see on the big screen - most Monday nights until mid-September.

2005 brings an exciting shift: all society screenings this year
will be at Rialto Cinemas on Moorhouse Ave! Membership costs just $85 waged / $75 unwaged, which includes free entry to all 30 films (that's less than $3 per film) plus discounted tickets when the big International Film Festival comes to town. Three-film admission passes are also available for $25, still well below commercial cinema rates.

Obviously, this isn't standard multiplex fare, or even the kind of film that art-house cinephiles are accustomed to. The narrative is generally non-linear and non-verbal, basking in a wealth of visual and aural pleasures that have been called "sculptural", "decadent", "dazzlingly symbolic" and "just plain insane". Many reviewers have drawn flattering parallels to some of the most significant directors of all time:
"There's a class of film directors - Kubrick, Fellini, Ken Russell, Derek Jarman, David Lynch, Nicholas Ray, Tarkovsky - who are occasionally capable of producing images so arresting that they oblige the films to reorganize themselves around the symbolic potency of these brief visionary flashes. Barney's originality as a filmmaker lies in his ability to construct a narrative entirely from such glimpses" (Doug
Harvey - LA Weekly).

For more information on screening dates and times and how to join (and an interesting and elaborate history of Christchurch cinemas),

visit www.canterburyfilmsociety.org.nz