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MOVIES / ON DVD / THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

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The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2006)

44%
67%
100%
N/A
N/A
N/A
44 %
Reviews Counted: 39 Fresh: 17  Rotten:22 Average Rating: 5.6/10
 
Consensus: Though visually stunning and original, it fails to resonate emotionally. Though visually stunning and brilliantly original, the film fails to resonate emotionally. more
 
Rated: Not Rated
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Theatrical Release: Nov 17, 2006 Limited
Synopsis:
THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES is a dark and twisted fairytale filled with bizarrely beautiful imagery. The story concerns a doctor who kidnaps a stunning opera singer with desires of keeping her in a cage. [More]
THE PIANO TUNER OF EARTHQUAKES is a dark and twisted fairytale filled with bizarrely beautiful imagery. The story concerns a doctor who kidnaps a stunning opera singer with desires of keeping her in a cage. [Less]

Genre: Dramas

Starring: Gottfried John, Assumpta Serna, Amira Casar

Director: Timothy Quay, Stephen Quay

DVD Info

Release:

Apr 24, 2007

[DVD Details]

DVD Features:

  • Keep Case
  • Anamorphic Widescreen

Audio:

  • (unspecified) - English
  • Subtitles - English

Additional Release Material:

  • Audio Commentary
  • Behind the Scenes - The Making of THE PIANO TUNER
  • Interviews
  • Trailers - Theatrical Trailer

Buy It On DVD

Reviews

 
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Ratings Image

blends live action and animation to create a surreal hermetic vision that is as beautifully seductive as it is chillingly inaccessible.

Full Review | Comment
08/02/07 12:30 PM
Anton Bitel
Eye for Film
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review | Comment
05/12/07 05:43 AM
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Ratings Image

What the movie lacks in acting and coherence, it more than makes up for through imagery.

Full Review | Comment
03/02/07 05:19 PM
John Monaghan
Detroit Free Press
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Ratings Image

The story proves to be elusive, and the robotic performances of the cast make it hard to care about any of the characters -- or to try to figure out what's supposed to be going on.

Full Review | Comment
02/08/07 04:46 PM
Jeff Vice
Deseret News, Salt Lake City
Ratings Image

It's one thing to make an audience sweat a bit to ferret out a plot, or piece together visual clues in order to comprehend a film. But it's quite another to dunk such richly imagined pictures in such a thick coat of shadow.

Full Review | Comment
01/26/07 03:53 PM
Marc Mohan
Oregonian
Ratings Image

It's a hauntingly effective, poetic mood piece but an exasperating drama.

Full Review | Comment
01/19/07 02:42 PM
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
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Ratings Image

Beyond that? Not much.

Full Review | Comment
01/18/07 11:26 PM
Walter Chaw
Film Freak Central
Ratings Image

It is a bold step into a mainstream realm for its ancient fablelike theme, agile storytelling, magnificent design and sure grasp of long-form narrative structure.

Full Review | Comment
01/12/07 03:14 PM
Ted Fry
Seattle Times
Ratings Image

The Quay brothers have created a gloriously gorgeous filmwith wondrous set pieces that have been beautifully shot inburnished tones by cinematographer Nic Knowland. It's a dark and disturbing fairy tale that fans of the brothers' work will embrace.

Full Review | Comment
01/11/07 04:51 PM
Ted Murphy
Murphy's Movie Reviews
Ratings Image

This opaque tale offers meticulously crafted atmosphere, but rather less passion or drama.

Full Review | Comment
01/05/07 02:42 PM
Bill Stamets
Chicago Sun-Times
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Ratings Image

As in most of the Quays' fantasias, the narrative is oblique and slow moving but the florid visuals are rife with sexual and psychological overtones.

Full Review | Comment
01/05/07 02:40 PM
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
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Ratings Image

Like a dream, this film is wispy and ethereal; like a nightmare, it lodges in your hindbrain and gnaws away with gleeful abandon.

Full Review | Comment
01/04/07 03:17 PM
Marc Savlov
Austin Chronicle
Ratings Image

Exquisitely detailed, difficult to grasp hold of, and always obscured by molds and corrosions. The Quay Brothers are distinct oddities in the landscape of contemporary cinema.

Full Review | Comment
12/08/06 02:45 PM
Leo Goldsmith
Reverse Shot
Ratings Image

Characters slowly whisper their dialogue to one another in scenes that would put the dead to sleep.

Full Review | Comment
12/07/06 08:56 PM
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
Ratings Image

The whole movie feels filmed through the wrong end of a stereopticon: stiff, fascinating, riddled with secrets it doesn't care to divulge.

Full Review | Comment
12/01/06 03:11 PM
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
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Ratings Image

The music is gorgeously classical and some of the images are memorable and haunting, but experiencing the film is near-torture.

Full Review | Comment
12/01/06 07:33 AM
Eric Monder
Film Journal International
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... those who can surrender to the Quays' poetic logic will find "The Piano Tuner" to be nothing short of a masterpiece.

Full Review | Comment
11/30/06 10:59 PM
Kristine McKenna
Los Angeles Times
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Ratings Image

However much The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes wants to haunt your dreams, it has a better chance of production-designing you to death.

Full Review | Comment
11/30/06 11:02 AM
Tim Grierson
L.A. Weekly
Ratings Image

What if David Lynch had directed The Abominable Dr. Phibes? The result might well have been something along the lines of this Quay Brothers horror art film.

Full Review | Comment
11/27/06 03:55 PM
Staci Layne Wilson
About.com
Ratings Image

'The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes' is a semi-animated, human-acted fantasy that plays sweetly but takes too long to say too little.

Full Review | Comment
11/25/06 01:09 AM
Ron Wilkinson
Monsters and Critics
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