Customer Reviews

The Brothers Quay Collection: Ten Astonishing Short Films 1984-1993

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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.

I'm not exactly sure how to describe the Brothers Quay work other than it's one of those things that transcends its genre and evokes real and powerful emotions in the viewer. These short films, all of which are masterpieces of stop-motion animation, are all very dreamlike and abstract, but the fact that you may not understand what's going on all the time doesn't really matter. What's important here isn't the plot or meaning, but the aesthetic and style, much like other (narrative and non-narrative) forms of art. Really, if I had to chose one word to describe the work of the Brothers Quay it would be "beautiful".

My only complaint with this DVD is that the menus and indexing aren't quite set up right, so when one short ends, you have to manually hit the "menu" button on your remote to go back or it'll keep playing through to the next short. Regardless, these shorts are definitely worth having on DVD because of the superior picture quality and the convenience of being able to skip to the individual shorts (not to mention the fact that the DVD includes a few extras, like an interview with the Quays).

This collection of ten short films is both revolutionary and revolting. The brothers are actual identical twins, born in Pennsylvania, now living in seclusion in London, who have created a warped vision all their own. Using jerky stop-motion animation and a variety of inanimate household items, this celluloid world is full of darkness and nightmares. Ranging in length from one minute to 21-minutes, it's best to watch this tape in segments; otherwise, your brain will become numb trying desperately to make some type of sense out of the twisted visuals playing out before you. If you have ever seen the music videos for Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" or Marilyn Manson's "Tourniquet," you have already tasted the influence of the brothers. Particularly recommended for anyone with a phobia of porcelain baby dolls -- face your fears!!

When I first saw the animation of the Brothers Quay, I was totally entranced. Their stop-motion puppet style is so bizzare and unique, it pulls you in.

First, they use "antique dolls" for their characters. everything has an old and used feel.

Second, is the use of "common items". This really brings it to another level. Nothing is more artistic than a ballet of wood screws, an old pocket watch, and some very creative uses for red meat (you just have to watch it). It can be disturbing at times, but with their sense of direction and cinematography you will almost always find something new with each viewing.

I can see some people who are into mainstream things absolutely hating their work. It is bizzare to say the least. But there is a unique charm that these brothers have created in their dark world.

On this DVD, to me the main features are "Nocturna Artificiala", their first feature (a "bonus" on the DVD), "Street of Crocidiles" (the one that I found the easiest to follow, yet one of the more bizzare), and "The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer" (tribute to the Chech animator). Most of the other films are shorts under 5 minutes, but it is still a great DVD to own if you like the art of animation.

The Brothers Quay have been producing surreal short stop-motion animated films and videos since 1979. This dvd features 11 different shorts, often grotesque but always stunningly beautiful animation in each. The two shorts I am most familiar with, "Are We Still Married" (1992) and "Can't Go Wrong Without You" (1993) were music videos produced for 4AD Records for the band His Name Is Alive. Both feature similar character animation to several of the Tool videos of the mid-nineties, such as "Prison Sex". Yet I think the Brothers Quay have a more subtle and complex style. Another stylistic influence on BQ is Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, who produced a macabre version of Alice in Wonderland called "Alice" using fish skeletons and animal skulls as a medium. Indeed, the link is more than a coincidence -- one short, titled "the Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer" (1984) pays hommage to Jan.

Any fan of animation should check out these artists. Even if you are not a fan of 'experimental' or non-narrative film, you will find much to enjoy and discuss about their work in this collection.

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.

These films (the good ones anyway) will send you into a mental place that is entirely other (I would say "literally" but that word is not used to add emphasis, like "entirely" might be). It would be a cliche to call it "dreamlike" or "surreal," I've never seen a painting or had a nightmare like this. I wish. They are wholly unique, so maybe you should rent these films before committing yourself to a DVD.

(Review written by Jessica DeCuir )

*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.

It's nice to have so many Quay shorts crammed together onto one tape, though some of their early films ("Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer" especially) tend to get a bit tedious unless you're really in the mood. I'm sure label/contract nonsense precluded them from including some of their music videos -- the Michael Penn and his Name is Alive sequences would have rounded this out wonderfully. The high points here -- "The Street of Crocodiles" and "The Epic of Gilgamesh" -- are so unlike anything else ever done, yet somehow so familiar, that they defy description. The are like a glimpse into the dreaming self, steeped in chittering dangers, endlessly self-elongating shadows and an Eastern European/Central Asian musical sadness so rich and deep, and so strangely flavored, redolent with the mixed smells of ancient motor oil, saffron, cinnamon, dried blood, sulphur and woodsmoke. A peek into something we all are but have not yet given a name to. Haunting, mesmerizing, creepy as hell, these films will stay with you for days. The dance of the screws in "The Street of Crocodiles" is especially jarring -- so visually logical when it's happening right before your eyes, yet nothing you'd ever have thought of before.

I just wanted to leave a quick note about the quality of this DVD.
While the films in the collection are great for the most part, as a few others have noted, the DVD menu has severe problems which at best will present annoying noise on the main menu, and at worst will actually prevent you from viewing some of the content.
I find it hard to believe that this disc was produced with such low attention to quality.