The Quay Brothers (Stephen and Timothy) are very well known in animation circles for their very dark and bizarre stop-motion films, that usually involve disturbing and damaged looking dolls. There is a dream-like quality to their animated shorts, with stories that follow dream logic, rather than any traditional narrative. I think it is fair to say that they are more concerned with the visuals of their films, and how they haunt the audience, than to tell a straight forward story that is easy to decipher. Whilst I have not seen all of the animated films that the brothers have done, the ones I have seen have been creepy, and all about mood. Aside from their animated shorts, the brother's have also made two previous feature length films; “Institute Benjamenta; or This Dream People Call Human Life” from 1995, and “The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes” from 2004. As you can probably tell from the titles of both films, these features stay true to the brother's love of the bizarre, although this time they are told with limited use of animation, instead they are live-action films. Amazingly, though, the Quay Brothers were able to transplant their dreamy imagery of their animated films into their live-action features to create films unlike anyone else. I actually saw “The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes” twenty years ago at MIFF, and remembered liking the dark, and weird fairy tale, so was initially excited when I saw that MIFF was bringing their latest film “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass” to the festival. This excitement was quickly dampened when my brother, who is a massive animation fan, saw the film early in the festival, and hated every second of it. He stated that “it had been a long time since he hated a film as much as he hated this one”, and even rated it zero stars (and he is known for his very soft ratings). Suddenly worried, I had to wait until the final day of MIFF for my session to see if I agreed with my brother's thoughts on the film.
“Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass” is based on the novel of the same name by Polish Jewish writer Bruno Shulz. The novel, which was published in 1937, has already been filmed once before by Wojciech Has in 1973 as “The Hourglass Sanatorium”, and is a film that is loved by many. It is also a film I have owned on blu-ray for over a decade, and sadly, still have never got around to watching, which I must admit I regretted, as if I had, I am sure it would have helped me understand this new version by the Quay Brothers. For their latest film, the brothers have predominantly returned to animation, although there is some live-action stuff thrown in here and there. Sadly, the story is almost impenetrable and I struggled for most of the running time to know what exactly was going on in the film. All I knew was the synopsis that is at the top of this review, which I read prior to my screening, as I thought it would help in my enjoyment of “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass”. Unfortunately, it did not.
Whilst there is definite artistry involved in the making of the film, and I did like some of the silent film-like aesthetics and thought the sound design was very impressive, I just could not make heads or tails out of the story at all, which made it a very frustrating watch. While I did not outright hate the film like my brother, it was still one of my least favourite screenings at MIFF this year because I just could not find a doorway into the film that would help me understand it. Personally, I put the blame squarely on the Quay Brothers as it is their job as directors to make their story accessible to the viewer, which they have not done here. Yes, some of the visuals are beautifully macabre and creepy, but the images do not help in telling the story. More often than not, they actually confused me more.
What is interesting is that the Quay Brothers have stayed true to their aesthetic they created for all of their animated shorts, which I applaud them for that, but the way the animation has been shot creates this weird diffused look, that at times your eyes struggle to be able to understand what they are looking at. The images are dark and foggy, almost like an old photograph that is fading or that wasn't developed properly. Your eyes feel like they are constantly adjusting to a darkened room, as they search for the puppet onscreen. The times that you can see what is going on, the images are gorgeous. Like I mentioned, they look like something out of a silent film, and the puppets or dolls themselves have a real tactile quality to them, thanks to the damage on each one, like paint chipped off of them, or dented wood etc. The images also feel similar to the early films by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, especially “Delicatessen”. However, more often than not, I was frustrated because I couldn't see what was on the screen properly, which certainly did not help with understanding the movie as a whole. I also did not understand what was the point of the live-action footage, and why the Quay Brothers felt the need to differentiate this part of the story by using actors instead of their dolls. It just seemed like an unnecessary quirk to the film as opposed to it having some purpose.
The film is also spoken in Polish, which meant that it needed to be subtitled (which never bothers me, as I have been watching international films my entire life), but the floral nature of the dialogue in the subtitles was so over the top, that again my brain couldn't work out what the words all meant. They were more like poetry than dialogue, and maybe that is exactly what they are and they are direct passages from the book the film is based on....I have no idea, but I found myself rolling my eyes at the dialogue in the film. Maybe my dissatisfaction with “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass” is my own fault, and if I was more literary, I would “get it”, that could be true, but honestly, I do not think I was the only one struggling in that cinema.
One thing I did understand in the film was that there was an element in the film where time looped back on itself, as many times in the later scenes, images were repeated as if time kept going back to a certain point again, and again, and again.......but if you asked me why, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you.
Overall, whilst I did not absolutely hate “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass”, I did find it a very frustrating viewing experience due to the fact that I couldn't understand what was happening in the film. Whilst there is definitely artistry involved in the film, and I love that the Quay Brothers stayed true to their usual aesthetic for the film, personally I found the film to be a failure in storytelling, which made it a very hard watch. Also at only 76 minutes long, it is proof of my very silly rule: “beware the film that is under eighty minutes”.
1.5 Stars.
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