I am a great admirer of the brothers' work, "Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies" (1989) and the "Stille Nacht" films among my favourites of all-time. Their world is esoteric; it's organic and all the same strangely inviting with a clear hint of heartfelt humor, far from sardonic that one might expect, considering how bleak their films seem at first glance.
But I've struggled with "The PianoTuner of Earthquakes" (2005), their second endeavor to long-form filmmaking. This led me to shun "Institute Benjamenta" at first, and only this spring did I man up, largely thanks to the wonderful Blu-ray edition released by the British Film Institute.
Perhaps due to my skewed expectations, I didn't warm up to it the first time around. But the second time I liked it a lot more already, and now that I'm slowly starting to appreciate certain aspects of it, I think next visits will be even more enjoyable and rewarding.
That said, there are two things I like about it more than anything. The first is the play on the number zero, that is, nothingness. It goes deep into Shakespearean territory of absolute darkness manifested in "King Lear", and of course carries through the centuries, sometimes playfully ("Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"). There's a well-written essay on the subject in the booklet for the Blu-ray released by the British Film Insitute, written by Samuel Frederick called "Redemption of the Miniature: The Quay Brothers and Robert Walser". This nothingness in the form of the number zero becomes a visual motif that runs throughout the film, reverberating in the very fabric of the visual design.
The other utterly masterful aspect of the film is the lighting. It's animated, fleeting, foreboding, sometimes resting on the characters' faces tiredly, sometimes dancing around them and on "everyday" objects (as if there were such things in a Quay film). It's this means of expression wherein the abnormal-seeming beautiful nightmare that is their cinematic world really lives and breathes.
But I've struggled with "The PianoTuner of Earthquakes" (2005), their second endeavor to long-form filmmaking. This led me to shun "Institute Benjamenta" at first, and only this spring did I man up, largely thanks to the wonderful Blu-ray edition released by the British Film Institute.
Perhaps due to my skewed expectations, I didn't warm up to it the first time around. But the second time I liked it a lot more already, and now that I'm slowly starting to appreciate certain aspects of it, I think next visits will be even more enjoyable and rewarding.
That said, there are two things I like about it more than anything. The first is the play on the number zero, that is, nothingness. It goes deep into Shakespearean territory of absolute darkness manifested in "King Lear", and of course carries through the centuries, sometimes playfully ("Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"). There's a well-written essay on the subject in the booklet for the Blu-ray released by the British Film Insitute, written by Samuel Frederick called "Redemption of the Miniature: The Quay Brothers and Robert Walser". This nothingness in the form of the number zero becomes a visual motif that runs throughout the film, reverberating in the very fabric of the visual design.
The other utterly masterful aspect of the film is the lighting. It's animated, fleeting, foreboding, sometimes resting on the characters' faces tiredly, sometimes dancing around them and on "everyday" objects (as if there were such things in a Quay film). It's this means of expression wherein the abnormal-seeming beautiful nightmare that is their cinematic world really lives and breathes.