Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream That One Calls Human Life

If this has a meaning beyond the one on the surface, which carries no conviction, it must be one of the classic horror films. But I can't see that it does. The authoritarian, sexually perverse world that it depicts seems the creation of someone who has never experienced oppression or obsession at first hand and so has nothing to say about it. The film is a totally artificial and hermetic work. On the other hand, its distance from reality allows its manufacturers to take as much time as they please to refine and distill its essence, as in a bottle. But what is it they're distilling? Whatever it is, it gives off a lovely scent. One exquisite shot follows another; the actors are perfectly cast. Alice Krige I suppose can be called a cult figure (I'm one of the cult), and in this film she has finally found the ideal environment. It's never uninteresting, never unattractive--but it should have been disturbing and it isn't. Some day I hope to find something inside it.

In reading the comments, it occurred to me that many who have watched this film have missed the point. There are some very thoughtful comments to be sure and this is a very thought provoking film. I think that the analogy between this film and Eraserhead is a valid one but not for the reasons stated. Institute Benjamenta and Eraserhead are both films that to my mind are not to be viewed in the same way as Hollywood fare where plot and story is everything. These films are meant to be appreciated in the same way you would go to a museum and look at something by Van Gogh or Dali. These films are cinema paintings designed to wash over you and envelope you in a way that a plot-based film traditional film seldom does. Most filmmakers are strapped tightly into a box which is the "Hollywood Formula". That form is very rigid and if you want to make films consistently in Hollywood you have to conform. The Brothers Quay have paid dearly for their invention and artistry. It's very hard for them to get money to make these films. They don't need to fix "Institute" by being better, we need to fix ourselves for being too limited in our acceptance of what a film can be. This film is a work of unbridled genius. I only say "God Bless them and give us MORE!

The comparison to David Lynch's "Eraserhead" is important but only in an opposite way. While Lynch's first feature (and still the best) relies strongly and almost only on directors vision and artistic "feel" (without any philosophy, just a free thought) this one found an inspiration in poetry and tried to transcend it into a living world. So, the wrong approach is more than obvious. How can anybody turn poetry into a motion picture. The answer is: only if you approach the film the same way as some poet might approach his poem - with senses and instinct, nothing else. And that is where the Quay brothers failed. They tried to put poetic vision into a hermetic space and, of course it doesn't work. Photography and acting are excellent but they are not much important here. For me, the whole scenery and the plot is unnecessary and got very little to do with the philosophy of dialogues. It is just there to fill the visuals. And then you end up with something that's not exactly a film but not exactly anything else either. Still, true artistic films are so rare today, that even a weak one is more than welcome in a world of superficial art. Let's just hope that it will be better next time, for brothers Quay and for us.

A truly wonderful film that slowly unfolds images of great beauty before you. I particularly like the through the keyhole moment and the dust being brushed aside by the clock pendulum. But mentioning specific scenes is to distract from the whole work which is I am sure is as close to a dream as one would get without sleeping. I adore Alice Krige in it and the way scenes have been constructed with the actors placed within the whole composition of the frame. I would not recommend this film, rather I think it is much better to discover it yourself and cherish it.

Institute Benjamenta is an oddity. Let me say that first, get it out of the way. Part of me hesitates from revealing here that it is one of my favourite films of all time because I know I'll make some people reading this mini-review approach it from the wrong angle. A film like this should never become required viewing. You should stumble across it at a repertory cinema somewhere or be beguiled by the video-box art showing the striking visage of Alice Krige as she paces before her blackboard, deerfoot staff in hand. You should find one evening that its the only thing that sounds interesting on TV, or peer at a still alongside a mention in your TV guide and wonder what on earth the picture is supposed to depict. Contained between main and end credits here is a world so visually ravishing and technically abstruse that you are only in the film while you are watching; the rules of the outside do not apply. You peer into the dreamy, foggy black-and-white and what you can't identify for certain your imagination fills out. These are the most special special effects because you wonder 'what' and 'why' by never 'how.' The Institute of the title is a school for servants, the lessons they are taught bizarre and repetitive to the point of making 'deja-vu' a permanent state of being. Is the repetition the point of it all or has the teacher lost the plot? If she has, how come we care? None of this is vaguely like real life. None of it, that is, bar the characters emotions. Or is the whole thing like real life, like Life with a capital 'L?' In the end does this sort of pondering make for a good movie? I won't answer that because I'm terribly biased. Remember the title and look it up sometime. It's the cinematic equivalent of a stunning old-fashioned magician's trick. A monochrome bouquet, a sad smile. There are images, scenes that may make the hairs on the back of your neck think they're a cornfield with a twister on the way. I tried to warn you as quietly as I could.