A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A difficult and dreamlike film that mixes elements of the period squalor and steam punk expressionism of an early David Lynch, with the archaic self-awareness of Guy Maddin at his most starkly referential. Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995) will surely repel just as many viewers as it excites; with its combination of slow, abstract, carefully composed black and white imagery and elliptical narrative structures filled with codes and ciphers managing to be both pretentious and fascinating in equal measures. At its best, the atmosphere is continually beguiling and often like nothing else we've ever experienced; with every single frame of this bizarre odyssey into the notions of fractured, nocturnal ambiance and closeted sensuality being tightly composed and beautiful to look at. However, at its worst, it is infuriatingly beyond comprehension; with the mood and the tone leading the film, almost like poetry, beyond the outdated notions of structure or momentum, and instead leaving us with a film that is overwhelming in its unique vision and design, but simply devoid of any sense of feeling or philosophy for an audience to fully grasp on to.This isn't a flaw in itself, as cinema is ultimately beyond the trite notions of character and plot, but even then, a film should, in my mind at least, have the potential to make us think and feel. As with all great art there should be some idea attached to it; something that stands out and resonates either emotionally or intellectually (or both) that makes the process of viewing more rewarding on an entirely personal level. You have to really search for it here, and clearly, judging from the past reviews, my fellow commentators have also struggled to unearth any overall sense of meaning from the film's emptily cryptic images and emphasis on dreamlike atmospherics. If the point of the film was simply to conjure this world within the mind of the viewer, then the film is a great success; with the meandering, drifting as if sleepwalking tone of the film being both striking and evocative from the first frame until the last. That said, there's only so far we can go with lovingly choreographed sequences of dance and movement combined with the amazing use of editing and shot construction, which finds stories in even the most minor or mundane of actions, though sadly, nothing that would point to an overall theme or interpretation.I suppose it is indicative of the directors' joint backgrounds in animation, or their fondness and appreciation for the films of Jan Švankmajer or Juraj Herz, with the emphasis placed on the look and feel of the film, rather than any kind of connection to the material. Or maybe there is and we just need to look deeper; to scratch beneath the surface and persevere with the free-flowing narrative, to see the clues that lurk beneath. Regardless of how you approach it - and with these particular "flaws" in mind - the film is still a fascinating work; with that atmosphere and somewhat Eastern European look and feel of the film being unrivalled, and again, unlike anything else we've ever experienced. Added to this, the central performances from Mark Rylance and Alice Krige are both exceptionally detailed, even within such an evasive and enigmatic construct. At any rate, Institute Benjamenta is certainly a difficult film to recommend, but an even more difficult one to dismiss; with the hints of the brothers' earlier, animated work - such as Street of Crocodiles (1986) and Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies (1988) drawing obvious parallels - and combining it with an approach that is memorable and purely cinematic.

...especially Alice Krige! The directing, however, I would have liked more without its over enthusiastic surreal demeanour. The story and essence of the picture as well as its atmosphere and its meaning in reference to the real world fall much to short. What a waste of attitude and art as the ideas of presenting and most acting were captivating. But in lack of a coherent story the movie became what it is...art, with a meaning somewhere to find (Dalí meets a narcissistic form of Kafka) - instead of a beautiful and moving picture with deep meaning. All just for art's sake? e.g. why is she speaking Dutch and other languages several times? Why overdoing it? Why this shabby and in a way arrogant symbolism?Didn't read the book by Robert Walser (Jakob von Gunten) - but now I'm interested and hope it's better.

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 theater with real people, a linear story, sex as normally read. Sure, the environment is 'dark,' and the staging is highly stylized. 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).

A quiet and softly spoken man arrives at a ghostly building to enrol for the servants class taught there. He rings the doorbell and is greeted by a monkey's face through the small hole in the door. The man's name is Jakob. He enters and meets one of the two owners (a brother and sister). The brother is unpleasant, and informs Jakob that there are no favourites here. Jakob goes into class to meet the other students. They all announce their names to him and then fall over. The lessons are presumptuous and iterative. They involve the men swaying from side to side and standing on one leg. They really are quite eccentric. The institute seems to be its own little world away from reality, with its low ceiling rooms. The sister soon has a strange fondness for Jakob. This is a very sombre film, but has a unique air to it. The pacing is pedestrian, but you stay with it. The acting is good, and the camerawork is meticulous and probing.