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Summary: Brothers Quay Collection-DVD
Review: *Attn: DVD buyers! See special feature problems with this Kino DVD release below. Turn off the TV and tune into the Brothers Quay! The use of scavenged materials and cracked dolls, surreal environs, and the bizarre camera work, in addition to the haunting music are unforgettably unique and original. Before all those pretentious art students started using doll heads, there were the Brothers Quay. Before the MTV knock-off videos, their were the original Brothers Quay. Repetition and distortion reoccur in disturbing scenarios that can not fully be explained, nor should they be. In their B/W shorts, it is as though microsopic, hybrid forms have been filmed under a magnifying lens, and we, the voyeurs, are drawn into their obsessive-compulsive world. The brothers pay hommage to Czech animator, Jan Svankmajer (check out his trippy version of "Alice" in Wonderland), but lack his crisp, clear, punch-in-the-face political satire in favor of blurry,dreamscapes of paranoia and non-verbal insanity. What is revealed is a slow, intense inspection of parts: hybrid machines and dolls with human and animal instincts; at once familiar yet frighteningly unfamiliar. Their perception through the camera lens is mind-tweaking with exagerrated depth of field, asymmetrical compositions/montage,and movements in and out of focus. Their atmospheric, equivocal expressions make contemporary digital animation seem gimmicky and expressionless. *Word of warning to DVD buyers and distributors: The DVD distributor, Kino, has advertised Special Features, including a rare interview with the Brothers Quay and their first film. The Special Features of this DVD, unfortunately, cannot be accessed on most DVD players or computers until the company resolves this problem and puts out a new version, which they are evidently looking into (they've received complaints already). There's still lots of goodies without the Special Features, but the inability to acess the interview and first film is disappointing.
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Summary: "astonishing" is actually accurate.
Review: A few years back I saw "Institute Benjamenta," the Quay Brothers' full-length live-action film, at some festival. I'd never heard of them before, but they blew me away like they blow everybody away. The B&W was just lovely. I left the theatre like Moses left Horeb. Of course, the Quays are better known for their stop-motion shorts, and when I mentioned "Benjamenta" to a friend, he loaned me a tape with "Street of Crocodiles" and a few others. All the Tool and Chemical Bros and NIN videos aside, when I watched "Crocodiles" for the first time, I realized I had hit bedrock. The videos are just cheap and tawdry imitations. Mark Romanek chips on this vibe but he's just aping Quay. Nor can you blame him. Once you've watched a band of empty-headed, hollow-eyed Victorian dolls perform bizarre experiments with raw meat and insects to a stabbing violin score, you walk away a changed featherless biped. Well I condidered myself a fan, but I hadn't seen the half of the films on this DVD before I bought it. I had like a month of Quay-Samadhi. My personal favourites are the lovely B&W "Stille Nachts." "Dramolet" examines the secret life of lead filings (animated in stop-motion!) and magnets, presided over by an incredibly weathered and threadbare doll-puppet with cracked face and glistening black eyes. Later "Stille Nachts" were videos for His Name Is Alive (never heard of them before this either), including "Are We Still Married" and "Can't Go Wrong Without You," which feature the comedy duo of a veiled doll in striped socks that rocks back and forth ominously on its heels, and a decaying toy rabbit orbited by kinetic ping-pong balls. Also in this series is "Tales From the Vienna Woods," which displays much of the symbolic imagery later used in "Benjamenta:" antlers and hooves and plaques in German, etc. These films "aren't for everybody;" there I said it. But neither is "You've Got Mail." If you're interested in them at all, if you're reading this page but you actually haven't seen the films but they sound like your thing - if you're the ultimate sitting duck consumer, in other words - all I can say in this case is CONSUME. I doubt you'll regret it. And if you do, well, you have no taste anyway, so what do I care. By the way, it doesn't necessarily follow that if you love one film, you'll love em all, or "" if you hate. I have to be in a very rare mood to watch "Crocodiles" again (now that I've seen the others), but "The Comb" and "Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies" endlessly facinate me. Each piece has its own atomsphere.
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Summary: Not scary, but a real experience!
Review: Actually, only 1 film on this DVD is one that I really enjoyed. The Comb is a short film on this DVD that was so weird it was like watching one of my childhood dreams on screen. Can't explain it. Can't quite remember it either. Just try to rent this one.
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Summary: Not scary, but a real experience!
Review: Actually, only 1 film on this DVD is one that I really enjoyed. The Comb is a short film on this DVD that was so weird it was like watching one of my childhood dreams on screen. Can't explain it. Can't quite remember it either. Just try to rent this one.
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Summary: Extreme boredom. A waste of time.
Review: After five minutes of watching this DVD, you'll have an idea of how the rest of the DVD is. There is no story in any of the films. If I see another film about string, it'll be too soon. This DVD should have a rating of 0 stars, unless you like films about pocket lint.
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Summary: try and find something this cool!
Review: bet you thought the NIN video 'closer' was cool, well, this is the god of whoever made that video! fans of BURTON, h.r. giger, and the latest dark fantasy will buy this NOW!
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Summary: A Fascination of Lines
Review: Cinema seems to create more urban legends than any other art form. It is a measure of their success that the Brothers Quay have already reached the point where there is some confusion about their origins. Whether Minnesota or Pennsylvania, we do know that they received their journeyman artistic training in Philadelphia and then moved to London, where they felt there was more opportunity for them than the U.S. had to offer. There they developed a well-deserved reputation for being true masters of puppetry and miniaturist animation. Experiencing a film produced by the Quays is a lot like watching a travelogue through one of those 19th Century cabinets of curiosities that vied with wax museums for the attention of a public that still had neither television or radio for entertainment. Whichever way one looks one finds startling juxtapositions of objects whose immediate purpose is often not quite apparent. Lost in the shadows are countless grotesqueries that claim our attention and defy us to extract their real significance. For the Brothers Quay scenery is not the background to events, but an active, and sometimes overwhelming, participant. Against this stage occupied with machines that require living juices to operate and drawers of ever changing objects move a cast of characters every bit as fantastical as those who people Franz Kafka's stories and diaries. Brainless dolls seek content, eerie puppets of bent old men gain and lose their souls, and stuffed rabbits defend egg like beings from attack. Disembodied hands perform erotic acts with ladders while in the background plays a soundtrack both familiar and obscure. Across all run countless images of lines, bent and parallel, shadowed and real, perhaps acting as a surreal circulatory system that ties all these components together visually. The inspiration for these cinematic expressions are many - Kafka's nightmares, the epic of Gilgamesh, poetry, and admiration for the creative genius of others. Message is not paramount to the Quay's productions. Or, more accurately, linear explicitness is viewed with some suspicion. Explication arises instead from the interaction between the visible and the signified, and so varies from viewer to viewer. I am reminded somehow of Joel-Peter Witkin's photographs, although the Quays' work lacks the horrific overtones that Witkin plays on. The DVD offers the addition of 'Nocturna Artificialia,' the trailer for 'Institute Benjamenta,' and an interview with the Brothers Quay. For some reason, the menu is not immediately apparent when using the video. Rest assured, there is one, and you will need to find it to enjoy the extra features. On the whole, this is a remarkable viewing experience. The influence of the Quays has become pervasive, and this is certainly the best way to expand one's knowledge of a remarkable expression of cinematographic creativity.
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Summary: YEAH!!!!!
Review: DON'T drink + drive and watch this GREAT astonishing piece of ART. 'natch that's what it is .... never seen this before eh? SO, just obServe the works of Tim Burton and Mr. David Lynch ..... hmmmm....... 'le rue de krokodil' is just one xmpl. SPLENDID! SPLENDID and MORE Splendid - Luis Bunel and Mr. Dali would applaud[e] with their hearbeats!
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Summary: Technically this animations rock
Review: Even when some of this animations are technically excellent some of them may be a little slow...so beware...but aside from that the 11 short films are very nice...dark and moody shows with some interesting music.
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Summary: The students surpass the teacher
Review: First thing I would say is I didn't have any problem playing the DVD. No jitter - all features were easy to use. The Quays are true masters of stop motion animation. Creating fluid motion sequences like I have never seen anyone else do. They use B/W highlighted with color to bring emphasis to certain areas. . They explore the relation of the individual vs. the institutional powers, without falling into the cliches that plague most films dealing with this subject. The juxtaposition of cute doll people set into a dark world of rigid control creates a world that is very engaging, but at the same time has an undertone of fear. In many distopia stories chaos and social decay are the villains, but here mechanical control without regard for personal rights is the evil as it forces people to become players whether or not they want to.
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