Institute Benjamenta

Anonymous

at 3:57 pm

If you appreciate films with a strong sense of atmosphere that builds up through the interplay of light and shadow and movement of bodies in space, you will enjoy this film. Brother’s Quay background in animation is evident in their treatment of human form. The theme of alienation is conveyed with outmost sensitivity. Surreal, inspiring!
Rating: 5 / 5

yorgos dalman

at 6:54 pm

Enter “Institute Benjamenta” is entering a world that is almost… other worldy. Strange maybe, but it’s a world created by the twin brothers Stephen and Timothy Quay who are known for their claustrophobic animated shorts which are little dreamlike environments, filled with wood, iron, feathers, shattered glass and worn-out, strange little moving puppet things. Now there is their first live action feature and the Quays have menaged to keep the dark brooding atmosphere that was so deliciously present in their early works.
The Institute is a school for butlers, but expect no standard training procedures. It feels more like some ‘last resort on earth’, a school in whuch lessons are repeated to infinity and makes the students move and look like marionets. There is no real story here, in the minds of the Quay brothers that concept probably doesn’t even seem to exist. It’s a series of tableaus in which not action or dialogue but movement is the main treat; there is the motion of the actors, who are sometimes directed to make seemingly unreasonable moves, and there is the perfect colaboration between lights, camera and editing. It’s a ballet, a theatre of motion, and the spoken dialogue is more part of the music than of the pot.
The decors are incredibly detailed: pictures, gestures, objects, nothing escapes the eye of the filmmakers, who seem to operate even more as one single person, than most single movie directs do. The result is a stunningly and hypnotic film, shot in velvet black and white, slow and wicked, some times too slow and wicked, but rewarding for those who can wait.
Rating: 5 / 5

G K

at 7:48 pm

Of all the films I’ve ever seen, this is close to being the one that most completely blew me away.

I first saw it in my local cinema, and after an initial period of uncertainty as to how good it was going to be, or what *kind* of film it was, I found myself completely mesmerised. There is so much going on beneath the surface here – or perhaps it was going on beneath my surface, and the filmmakers managed somehow to open it up for me, or clean the windows looking onto it. Whatever the inner process was, it was an experience of real depth and beauty – albeit at times a rather disturbing one.

It’s very hard to write a review of Institute Benjamenta, because to describe the plot, or try and place it in some context of style is pretty much useless. It won’t describe the experience at all. You have to see it. It’s one of those rare things that you’d like to give a sixth star to, because it just seems to go beyond the normal boundaries you expect from a film.

I can’t critique it or classify it or tell you how & why it’s special – I can only try and convey my enthusiasm, and say an anonymous thanks to the people who made it.
Rating: 5 / 5