Search

Hallelujah!

1998, Movie, NR, 90 mins

Hallelujah!: Review

HALLELUJAH! | HALLELUJAH! RON ATHEY: A STORY OF DELIVERANCE
starstarstarstar
For nearly 20 years, Ron Athey has been on the cutting edge of performance art. Literally. You may have even heard of him: He's the one who became a whipping boy for groups seeking to slash Federal funding of the National Endowment of the Arts when it was reported that spectators at an Athey performance were drizzled with HIV-infected hemoglobin dripping from blood-soaked paper towels strung above the audience's heads (a whopping $150 worth of NEA money went toward the performance). The report wasn't entirely accurate, but reflects the mix of outrage, disgust and morbid fascination that Athey's work inspires. Some, however, find his work -- in which his own multiply pierced and tattooed body, and sundry precious bodily essences serve as artistic raw material -- profoundly moving. How you feel about Athey's approach to performance art-as-bloodsport will pretty much determine how you feel about this extremely graphic documentary by filmmaker Catherine Gund Saalfield: It's either a brave document of Athey's vision and art -- which involves much cutting, piercing, stretching, stapling and stitching, plus buckets of blood -- or it's a nauseating endurance test. With titles like "Martyrs & Saints" and "Deliverance," Athey's pieces are full of religious symbolism -- he's particularly fascinated by the Christian iconography of suffering, which he provocatively conflates with sexual fetishism (the spectre of St. Sebastian looms large) -- through which he attempts to explore the thresholds of the body, particularly issues of pain, illness, death and transcendence. Gund shies away from nothing, but the film's best moments come when Athey lays down the scalpel and talks about his life, even if the details are closer to Psychopathia Sexualis than anything in The Lives of the Artists. leave a comment --Ken Fox
Advertisement

Shop

Hallelujah! The Complete Collection
Buy Hallelujah! The Complete Collection from Amazon.com
From Acorn Media (DVD)
Average Customer Review: nostarnostarnostarnostarnostar
Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy New: $35.99

more Hallelujah! products

Advertisement

Related Websites

You might be also interested in the following websites:

Most Popular TV Shows

  1. NCIS
  2. Dancing with the Stars
  3. The Game
  4. Biggest Loser
  5. American Idol
more popular tv shows

Most Popular Celebrities

  1. Tiger Woods
  2. Pamela Bach
  3. Heidi Klum
  4. Jake Gyllenhaal
  5. Reese Witherspoon
more popular celebrities

Most Popular Movies

  1. The Twilight Saga: New Moon
  2. The Blind Side
  3. 2012
  4. Old Dogs
  5. A Christmas Carol
more popular movies

Top Videos

  1. Desperate Housewives
  2. Nip/Tuck
  3. The View
  4. NCIS
  5. TODAY
more top videos