US / 2018 / 134mins / No dialogue

Redoubt reveals a new direction in the work of renowned contemporary artist and filmmaker, Matthew Barney, creator of the CREMASTER Cycle (1994-2002), DRAWING RESTRAINT 9 (2005) and the film opera River of Fundament (2014). The film follows a sharp-shooter (played by champion Palma rifle shooter, Anette Wachter) in her pursuit of wolves across the winter wilderness of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, accompanied by two dancers moving in dialogue. Barney appears in the film as an artist employed by the US Forest Service. He tracks and observes the hunter while making a series of copper etchings.

A hoop dance by an indigenous contemporary choreographer is the catalyst for the wolf hunt’s dramatic conclusion. The characters communicate a mythological narrative through dance, letting movement replace language and weave together the story of Diana and Actaeon, cosmology and modern American political narratives. The film has been hailed as ‘breathtakingly beautiful’ by the New York Times, and The Times salute Barney as ‘an idiosyncratic master’, ‘as you emerge you will discover that you have found a new way of seeing’.