Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?
04 Dec Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That One Calls Human Life (1995)
The Cloven
Film is a constant war between the forces of narrative. On one side are the forces of personality: we simply like to think in terms of characters in situations. Few things are as rich as the human face, and nothing as compelling as curiosity about people. But this is something that transcends film. In fact it is so common that film leverage of this narrative compulsion must be slight. These kinds of films, even the ones that capture me, aren’t really films. They are illustrated books or recorded plays.
On the other side, we have an emerging visual grammar, one that speaks more directly to the imagination through that part of the brain that comprehends without reasoning. This is where great films are grounded, in mining and extending this grammar. Cheap films exploit the old form; art invents.
The Quays were solidly in the second category. Their short ‘Are We Still Married’ is on my list of best films of all time. In their work prior to this (not counting music videos), they eschewed personality, even excoriated it. The films were densely visual with the narrative completely imbued in a diffuse visual environment. Pretty good stuff, plus puzzling and often disturbing.
Now they cross the line. Now they enter the world of theatre with real people, a linear story, sex as normally read. Sure, the environment is ‘dark,’ and the staging is highly stylised. But the characters are pretty familiar, even to the point that we get swept up in the erotic tragedy.
This is still worth watching because of the camera eye and the animated lighting. (Oh, that hidden implication of a shifting animator behind the scenes is sweet, and just below the surface. The ‘Svankmejer’ doors are nice. But otherwise, this just isn’t in the class with their other films. Those are art, This is a lost battle, in fact the battle depicted (between obsessive sense and the monotonous commitment of their prior animation).
Posted in 2002
Ted’s Evaluation — 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.
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