The Quay brothers can become repetitive quickly. This is their fourth movie I've watched, and although I can never deny the quality of their craft, it just seems the same over and over. They clearly have their leitmotifs: disfigured dolls, dusty sets, ancient, incomprehensible machinery, infinite drawers, lifeless objects coming to life.
I wonder if I could have enjoyed - or even understood - this movie better if I had read Bruno Schulz' book first. The movie makes little sense: a doll enters a subterranean world of dark shops, inhabited by creepy dolls. That's pretty much what I can make of it. In one of my favorite sequences, nails come alive, unscrew themselves and start moving as if they were insects. It's fascinating, but in the end this is the only appeal of the movie: a journey through dark, surreal imagery for its own sake.
Like the other Quay movies I've seen, I admire the talent that went into making this movie. Stop-motion must be one of the hardest things to accomplish in cinema, let alone make it so perfect and complex as the Quays do. I just wish they enjoyed narrative a little bit more.
I wonder if I could have enjoyed - or even understood - this movie better if I had read Bruno Schulz' book first. The movie makes little sense: a doll enters a subterranean world of dark shops, inhabited by creepy dolls. That's pretty much what I can make of it. In one of my favorite sequences, nails come alive, unscrew themselves and start moving as if they were insects. It's fascinating, but in the end this is the only appeal of the movie: a journey through dark, surreal imagery for its own sake.
Like the other Quay movies I've seen, I admire the talent that went into making this movie. Stop-motion must be one of the hardest things to accomplish in cinema, let alone make it so perfect and complex as the Quays do. I just wish they enjoyed narrative a little bit more.