THE ORDER, FROM MATTHEW BARNEY'S CREMASTER 3 (2002), dir. Matthew Barney, DVD REVIEW

It’s Not the Journey, it’s the Presentation.

The DVD of "The Order," which features footage shot at the Guggenheim museum, is more than the sum of its component parts.

What does it mean to be a "Cremaster?" I’m not sure, but web sites on Matthew Barney imply that his athletic past often informs his work, and his performance pieces focus on physical exertion and the rigors of sport. All those things can certainly be said about "The Order."

Though I might not have known without reading the "Cremaster 3" press release, "The Order" is supposed to be a race. Matthew Barney, looking like some kind of Scottish goblin with his blood-smeared jaws and pink-tinted kilt, must ascend the interior of the Guggenheim museum (a combination spiral walkway and atrium), accomplish a series of tasks, and reach ground level ahead of a stream of melted wax. Another performance artist, Richard Serra, is depositing the wax from the sixth, and highest, floor.

The tasks Matthew Barney must perform involve, or are impeded by, other performance artists. Each of them occupy their own floor. On the second floor, or first "degree," as Barney calls them, he encounters the "The Order of the Rainbow of Girls." A rockette-style chorus line, they tap, kick, and turn in a precise manner that, at one point, seems to hypnotize Barney. After eluding them, he must contend with two punk bands, Agnostic Front and Murphy's Law. Barney's task is to manipulate certain objects within their midst, a chore complicated by a frothing mass of circling moshers.

"Aimee Mullins," the featured third degree, initially appears inviting. She embraces the artist, only to tear out a chunk of his flesh with her teeth. The Mullins character is alluring in the most disturbing way. Though missing the lower parts of her legs, she gets around on prosthetics calves made out of clear glass. Once aroused, however, she mutates into a dangerous cheetah-woman.

During "The Five Points of Fellowship," Barney picks up, tosses, and otherwise rearranges an array of plastic casts. Most are shaped like columns, though one resembles a hybridized animal. The fifth and final degree is Serra himself, who splatters wax against a wall with a giant spoon. His work involves a lot of back-and-forth pacing, and battering his tool loudly against a square tile. He wears an oxygen mask that looks heavy, and his breathing becomes more labored, and his actions increasingly sloppy, the longer he spends at his task (Apparently, he is as committed to winning the race as his opponent).

I’m not sure how "The Order" was originally presented at the Guggenheim. Conceivably, they could have edited the footage down to a kind of quest narrative, following the exploits of Matthew Barney. The DVD, however, has been structured as five short films running in parallel—and in real time. The real time aspect gives "The Order" its uniqueness. It hints at a more ambitious vision than mere narrative film.

On the DVD, one can, if he/she chooses, toggle back-and-forth between the five degrees. Occasionally, this proves helpful; Barney stays in the first degree only a relatively short time. Once he leaves "The Order of the Rainbow of Girls," one can safely assume that he will soon reemerge in the second degree, "Agnostic Front vs. Murphy’s Law." But the viewer does not have to follow the artist. The viewer can stay with the dancers, who will continue to toe-tap until the end of the film. This is what’s unique about the real time aspect of "The Order."

I will grant you, watching dancers repeat the same steps for twenty minutes can get boring, even if their costumes reveal a generous amount of thigh. The same goes for a catwoman at rest, or a man flinging jelly. But I found myself hopelessly intrigued by the idea that a scene of a film could continue living, breathing, and existing, even after the main character had departed. This never happens in narrative film. There is always a restricted point of view, and the film usually stays within that point-of-view. When a character exits a scene, that place is no longer of concern. It ceases to exist. The cardboard sets are carried off the studio. The actors go home.

But in "The Order," the camera is still on. The characters still exist. Sure, he or she may be marking time in the most uninteresting way, but how does that vary from real life? As film viewers, we are used to having reality filtered through the camera. If these restrictions have not been completely broken by "The Order," at the very least, they have been loosened significantly. Matthew Barney doesn’t give us five films that take place in the same universe; it’s one universe divided into five films, all of which occur in real time.

The presence of the artist, some interesting props, and the Guggenheim itself provide connective tissue. The museum is as much a recurring character as the artist, the similar color and texture of the walls and bannisters allowing for visual continuity. Also, the Guggenheim's atrium rises past all six floors of the museum. More than once, the camera pans across the gaping abyss, as Barney fearlessly crawls like a spider to the next floor. During these shots, we can see Aimee Mullins scratching the air, the mosh-pit dwellers rampaging, the backs of the security men’s shirts. We are constantly reminded how everything exists in a connected space.

Finally, since all the floors in the Guggenheim are inclined upwards, Barney’s purpose seems obvious: He must climb up. We assume his mission will be accomplished when he reaches the top floor. Granted, it’s more of an instinctive plot than an explicitly-stated one. But the running time of "The Order" is short enough—only twenty-something minutes—that vague inferences as to where the story will lead are enough to keep us thoroughly involved.

Overall rating: Defies a star rating.

SECRETARY (2002), dir. Steven Shainberg

Not So Naughty, Not So Nice

Life occasionally gets too stressful for Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal). To cope, she cuts herself using any of an assortment of tools and sharp objects kept in a sewing box in her bedroom. We infer that Lee hasn’t had access to the box for a while, since, when we first meet her, she is being released from a mental institution. In voiceovers, she reflects on her time there positively (which makes us suspect that she didn’t get the help she actually needed). She had a routine, somebody else making the decisions for her. Sitting on a bench outside, waiting for her mother (Leslie Ann Warren) to pick her up, Lee seems quite ambivalent towards her newly-acquired freedom.

A quick trip home for her sister’s wedding sends her running for the sewing kit again. Her father (Stephen McHattie) is an alcoholic, the kind who promises not to drink, then quickly forgets those promises because he’s too drunk to remember them. Her mother busies herself with party guests, more or less forgetting about Lee. Only an old high school friend, Peter, keeps her company. Lee refrains from cutting herself that day, but later, she overhears her father slapping her mother around in a drunken rage. Lee runs to the kitchen, grabs a pot of boiling water off the stove. She doesn't hit her father with it. Instead, she presses the hot metal against the inside of her leg. The flesh sizzles, but Lee is so used to self-inflicted pain she doesn’t even cry out.

The next few weeks, she continues to adjust to life outside the institute. She goes to community college to learn typing. Her subsequent job search lands her in the office of E. Edward Grey (Spader), a lawyer who goes through assistants so regularly, there's a "Secretary Wanted" sign on the lawn surrounded by light bulbs. It resembles the signs motels frequently turn on and off to denote vacancies.

When Edward first meets Lee, there is a look in his eyes like a drowning man spotting a life preserver. An utter taskmaster, Edward constantly struggles to control his temper in the face of imperfect assistants. When Lee enters his life, he dumps all the red pens on his desk into the wastebasket. They have been his weapon of choice for so long. But Edward sees the chance for a clean slate in this new secretary, a chance to prove he can change his dominating ways once and for all.

During the next few weeks, Edward vacillates between ignoring Lee completely, and browbeating her mercilessly. But after a particularly stormy session, he spots her toying with the infamous sewing box. Edward asks about the box, learns its nature, then commands Lee never to cut herself again. At this point, Edward begins co-opting Lee's mind. He gives her strength through his own force of will--something Lee might not object to, given how much more comfortable she was when the institute regimented her existence.

But the taking over of Lee's mind leads to the conquest of her body, when Edward directs her to bend over his desk and begins spanking her. However, instead of enraging Lee, or shaming her the way his verbal abuse did, the act leaves her euphoric. Returning to her desk, her face takes on a look of supreme happiness. So begins the main thrust of the film, where Lee submits to an ever-increasing litany of strange acts, including wearing a saddle while holding a carrot in her mouth, or putting her arms through a stock so they are suspended level to her shoulders. In the process, her feelings for Edward blossom into genuine love.

Though it may sound like misogynist fantasy, "Secretary" is actually an emotionally-moving, well-acted drama about soul mates who find each other. What keeps it from teetering into misogyny is how Edward and Lee's relationship never feels like slavery. He never coerces her into doing anything. On the contrary, Lee chooses to engage in these activities. There’s a sweetness here; like the cliched office lovers, they struggle to focus on their work while constantly thinking about the other. The only difference with Lee and Edward is, in their case, there’s more saddle-wearing, and less penetration.

The movie is also unmisogynistic because it doesn't detail a woman falling into shame. On the contrary, Lee conquers the stigma of her urges, then tries to convince the man she loves not to be ashamed of wanting to dominate his secretary. Naturally, he is slow to respond. Edward's overwhelming shame could derive from past experiences with women who weren’t keen on, or were repulsed by, the idea of being submissive. Edward’s ex-wife, whom we meet briefly, quickly sizes up Lee as just the opposite. Was Edward married to a woman who understood too well how his mind worked, and sought to "cure" him of his "problem?" Lee is just the opposite; not only doesn’t she feel ashamed wearing a stock for Edward, she receives great pleasure from being under his power.

Lest we think all the power belongs to Edward, one should point out that, in performing these acts for the man she loves, who also happens to be her boss, Lee unwittingly diminishes Edward’s authority, and brings them both closer to the realm of equals. Conceivably, she decides on how often they canoodle, since her typing errors precipitate his having to "discipline" her. When Edward isn’t giving Lee the attention she needs, she has to fake her own incompetence in order to provide him errors to find. At one point, he still isn’t giving her the attention she needs, so she folds a worm into a memo, and stuffs it into an envelope. This is not the kind of thing an employee normally can do to a boss. We must conclude, therefore, that their relationship exists in some kind of limbo between "boss" and "employee," on a level with more equal footing.

Also, after Edward performs a particularly unspeakable act on Lee’s bare rear end, he tapes a memo to her back, which she discovers in the bathroom. While performing an unspeakable act on someone, then taping a note of their most recent typographic errors to their back, could be construed as degrading them, Lee’s heart is overwhelmed with passion by Edward's gesture. Edward, meanwhile, finds a spot on his tie, the result of their activity. He becomes disgusted. Ironically, though Lee allows Edward to satisfy his unusual sexual needs with her body, and seemingly submits herself to what many women might consider lewd acts, only one participant is becoming empowered by these entanglements, and it is Lee, not Edward.

Watching this movie, I couldn’t help thinking of the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast," where the downy young innocent falls in love with a man whom, by all outward appearances, is a horrible monster. "Secretary" is a lot like that. Beneath the film’s edgy, almost unpleasant-sounding veneer—this Belle has an addiction to self-mutilation, and the Beast is James Spader playing the kind of role James Spader specializes in—"Secretary" is really a fuzzy-hearted love story. The monster here is more beastly in his behavior than physical appearance. But the theme of seeing the humanity within remains.

Finding the humanity inside E. Edward Gray is a lot easier, thanks to the excellent casting. Maggie Gyllenhaal has the perfect girl-next-door looks for the role of Lee. She is believable as the shy and snivelling secretary. Later, her bright face and expressive features convey the strength and resolve her character finds. Her body posture also evolves, starting out small and downcast, ending up graceful and upright.

After Steven Soderbergh’s "sex, lies, & videotape (1989)," and David Cronenberg’s "Crash (1996)," Spader is probably the first name most writers, producers, or directors think of when casting a character with odd sexual fetishes. But he is also a solid leading man, and does his best work in a while here. Also worth noting is Stephen McHattie, terrific as Mr. Holloway. He only appears in a few scenes, but his sketched-out journey from souse to sobriety reflects the distances Lee travels as well. Lee’s sewing box is her coping mechanism, just as the bottle is Mr. Holloway's. When the crutches they are used to leaning on get taken out from under them, both Holloways are forced to confront their own natures. In the process, they emerge as stronger, better people.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)