Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Boring

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This is the Quay Brothers' tribute to Jan Svankmajer, a Czech animation filmmaker who is considered to be among the finest in history in the genre. I cannot really agree with that. I am not too b'much of a Svankmajer fan, but even less of the Quay Brothers probably. Then again, if you like darker animation, you will probably enjoy this 14-minute short film a lot more than I did. It was made over 30 years ago and consists of several very short films that, taken together, make up this quarter of an hour. My overall verdict is a negative one though because I usually prefer my animation bright and fluffy, but also the stories in here didn't do too much for me. Thumbs down.

Having recently become acquainted with Jan Svankmajer's work, I found it a wonderful piece of coincidence that I should discover the Quay brothers, brilliant stop-motion animators in their own right, through this short movie. Perhaps not a coincidence: they owe a lot to Svankmajer and this homage shows it.In Prague, a puppeteer takes in an apprentice. He opens his brain, empties it and symbolically fills with a book; evidently this is the imagination and knowledge the Quays have received from this master. This is the basic plot.But I'll argue we can also find a bigger world of inspirations in this movie. The puppeteer, with the book on his head is clearly a reference to Giuseppe Arcimboldo's famous picture, Librarian. At one point we see the cabinet reflected in a crystal ball, much like an M. C. Escher painting. And the dolls and puppets are themselves throwbacks to the early surrealist movies. This is a lovely celebration of weird art throughout history.As for the movie itself, it's inventive and sometimes creepy. The Quays have a talent for creating surreal imagery that exudes mystery and dread. This is a movie to delight in its strangeness. Still, it looks more like an introduction than something in its own right. I certainly hope the Quay brothers have more to offer.

Interesting grasps of motion and artistry here. The Quay Brothers pay homage to their key inspiration, though I not knowing their key inspiration well enough couldn't tell if it's all them or all Svankmejer, though this is very distinctive and beautiful stuff.Interestingly enough it reminds me a lot of Tool music videos, especially their one for Prison Sex (the room of cabinets, cabinets within cabinets, cabinets reacting to characters' curiosity, etc.), which leads me to believe that one Adam Jones is a Brothers Quay fan. Tool's video, however, seems to really focus on the creepy while this one seems a lot more interested in learning and motion. Must definitely be the Quay brothers seeing themselves as the pupil.To tell the truth the most interesting part of this short is the segment called "The child learns a lesson in 1/24th second." In case you don't know (which you should, if you're interested in experimental stuff like this), a single frame of a motion picture shoots by at 1/24th a second, or there are 24 frames per second. Thus this is probably the most self-reflexive part of the film, a little postmodern in its approach to lessons and learning of the form, which is why it's basically a series of jump cuts and a play on time. Very cool.--PolarisDiB

The Quay brothers style is at it's best here, with beautiful, surreal puppets telling the story of Czech animator Jan Svankmajer's life. The expressionist, stop-motion puppet work is perfectly suited to tell the story of Svankmajer's own surreal film-making. Split into several sections, the puppets (one expressing Svankmajer himself) act out the scenes, with maze-like, unidentifiable sets, dancing pins and a mesmerising soundtrack. All these elements combine into a treat for the eyes, and a severe hammering to the brain. The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer is a marvellous short, particularly of interest to fans of Svankmajer himself.