The Brothers Quay return for their first film in a decade with this live-action story of an 19th-century opera singer who is murdered on-stage shortly before her upcoming wedding. Soon after being slain by the nefarious Dr. Emmanuel Droz (Gottfried John) during a live performance, Malvina van Stille (Amira Casar) is spirited away to the inventor's remote villa to be reanimated and forced to play the lead in a grim production staged to recreate her abduction. As the time for the performance draws
near, piano tuner of earthquakes Felisberto (Cesar Sarachu) sets out to activate the seven essential automatons who dot the dreaded doctor's landscape and make sure all the essential elements are in place. Once again instilled with life after her brief stay in the afterworld, amnesiac Malvina is soon drawn to the mysterious Felisberto as a result of his uncanny resemblance to her one-time fiancé Adolfo (also Sarachu). ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I viewed The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes twice at the Philadephia Film Festival, and multiple times on DVD since. A marvelously creative movie with fine acting, dazzling visuals and haunting score. There's fantastic detail work here by the fabulously creative Brothers Quay, originally from Philadelphia but now
thoroughly 'European'. It must have taken years to make it.
Does the plot make sense? Yes. There's a good one paragraph synopsis [not by me] at zeitgeistfilms.com.
The central character is the mysterious Dr. Droz perfectly played by Gottfried John. He has an estate set on his own surreal island, apparently just off the coast of Iberia. Droz is among other things an 'alienist' (the closest thing to a psychiatrist, circa 1870), with the powers of a mesmerist. He has enslaved some of his former patients for use as servants. Droz is also a genius at inventing mechanical automata. Perhaps he has even mastered the art of capturing a person's soul to install in one of his machines...
Thankfully from this reviewer's point of view, Droz is also a horn-dog, and our filmmakers aren't shy about exposing the charms of the two lovely female principals, played by Amira Casar and Asumpte Serna.
February 24, 2009
Hal Morris
Super Reviewer
utterly Droz (droll & gross). Only sat through it hoping it'd be mysteriously saved in the end. It wasn't.
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