BJORK, PLEASE USE MORE `RESTRAINT'.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Some places in the world have actually been waiting for the first collaboration between art rock whatsit Bjork and her husband, multimedia ``what-is-that?'' artist Matthew Barney.

Well, it's here, a movie called ``Drawing Restraint 9.'' It's part of a bigger art project Barney is sprawling across several disciplines, and it's full of arcane symbolism and alarming imagery and lots of smart, goofy-sounding Bjork music. The couple also star as a man and a woman who (I think) get married on a Japanese whaling ship, then, in a chamber filling with liquid petroleum jelly, gently slice one another's nether regions off so they can (I think) turn into dolphins.

There's hardly any dialogue.

Those who've sat through episodes of Barney's previous ``Cremaster'' film series know that for all his inscrutability, Barney makes rigorous intellectual connections with his deliberately paced, sometimes alarming imagery. Nothing in his movies explains the underlying concepts of what we're looking at, so it helps to have some knowledge of his many references, or to read some of the surprisingly clear explanatory literature that accompanies his cinematic explorations.

But being informed isn't necessarily going to make this demanding, sensuous film any more or less enjoyable. It's the kind of thing that works best just washing over your ocular and aural nerve endings. If you can let it.

No whales were actually harpooned in the making of this film, and no judgment is rendered upon the traditional Japanese enterprise that so much of the world abhors. In fact, Barney seems to be totally enchanted by all things Japanese, which he somewhat reductively sees primarily as a series of rituals. While this is certainly an accurate enough take on the way many things are done in that culture, it doesn't leave any breathing space for what might be called a human factor.

Guess you could say this reflects Barney's stated theme for ``DR9,'' which is about the relationship between resistance and creativity. Whatever. It leads to some marvelous depictions of Bjork in a citrus bath and getting all dolled-up in animal hides.

The most prominent visual icons here are a large, cruciform mold that Barney fills with petroleum jelly and puts through various dissections and gooey collapses, and a huge chunk of ambergris - the fragrant whale spew beloved of perfumers the world over - that's discovered by a gaggle of pearl-diving girls.

And there's much more, all accompanied by a soundtrack of Bjorkian electro-squiggles, otherworldly choruses and guttural Noh yodelling. If you figure out any more specific meanings in the ravishing sight-and-soundscapes of ``Drawing Restraint 9,'' please send along your insights. If you don't, well, you're probably just as well off.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 - Three stars

(Not rated: dismemberment)

Starring: Bjork, Matthew Barney.

Director: Matthew Barney.

Running time: 2 hr. 33 min.

Playing: Landmark's Nuart, West Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: This film segment of a multimedia art project features Barney and his girlfriend, Bjork, a Japanese whaling ship and lots of oozing petroleum jelly. A lot to look at, very little said.

CAPTION(S):

photo

Photo:

An image from ``Drawing Restraint 9,'' a collaboration between Bjork and her multimedia artist-husband.