When I first picked this film up I was intrigued at the basic idea and eager to see what would happen. I'm a fan of animation and love it when it's successfully merged with live action footage. However, the animation in this film was about all I enjoyed. Although it must be said that the actors' performances were excellent. The visual look - including the animation - gave a wonderfully unnerving air to the piece. However this was quality of unease was lost amongst the overblown imagery, both visual and in the script, that you were practically hammered over the head with. Most annoying about this was the relative lack of importance to the plot. It seemed that the plot was shoe horned in at irregular intervals giving a stuttering effect that detracted massively from the flow of the piece. The voice overs from Felisberto - especially the one at the end - very much felt like a desperate attempt to fill in gaping holes in the plot which had been ignored in favour of side issues such as the whole ant thing (and even that wasn't properly addressed). I'm afraid the whole piece came across as, at best, a 'reasonable first attempt', by a teenager who has spent far too much time reading DH Lawrence. Not what you expect from seasoned film makers at all.

The Brothers Quay are directors, judging by conventional thought, should have stuck to making short films. I myself actually really liked their first feature, Institute Benjamenta, but judging by their sophomore effort, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, I'm willing to agree they don't come close to equaling their past genius at feature length. Piano Tuner is, without a doubt, a gorgeous film to look at, and often to listen to. Unfortunately, it's borderline painful to sit through with its convoluted narrative and glacial pace. Reading the plot synopsis, it sounds like a pretty good story. But the Brothers fail miserably to bring it to life. One thing they should consider avoiding completely in the future: dialogue. My God, it's awful here. A huge bust.

There are some writers (Kafka, Haruki Murakami), some musicians (Monk, Trane, Beethoven), some artists (Max Ernst) and some directors (The Brothers Quay and possibly David Lynch) whose work never disappoints me.I don't care if a movie makes sense or not. In fact, I prefer dream logic to real logic (forget about Hollywood logic!). The Piano Tuner draws you into a world you cannot forget. The alternately subtle and dramatic lighting choices the directors/cinematographers made were compelling.The fact that the protagonist looks a bit like Kafka and has a similar predeliction for dreams and a similar love life happened to resonate for me.True surrealism did not die out in the Thirties, but what passes for surrealism these days is generally anything that is "weird" or "fantastical." The Brothers Quay have put together a movie that the classic surrealists (and today's surrealists!) would have loved is an accomplishment of which the Brothers Quay should be proud.Any movie that changes the way I look at the world when I walk out of theater rates ten quivering mechanical thumbs up for me.

This is not a movie for people who do not know a great deal, and people who are not willing to think - the authors, whoever they are, made a great film, but not for people who do not like to work their brains - the Heros of the story are Dr. Droz, and Assumpta. In the end, Assumpta becomes Dr. Droz, as the assumption of the movie is that all enlightened people are spiritually one. The puppet is that part of Assumpta that was not quite enlightened, and the tree she cuts down represents all the unenlightenment in her life found in her friends and herself - when she finally becomes one with all the other enlightened people in the world (at the end of the movie), we see her looking in upon the lives of the piano tuner, and Malvina, who represent people who have tried to be enlightened, but gave up forever, and are now being used by the Droz to teach the world about the fact that it is being controlled and managed by a secret organization of Enlightened Masters who are one with each other completely. There is not even a slight hint of illogic in this movie, maybe that is why you might be having a hard time understanding it - I have yet to see a comment that even gets close to grasping the profound meaning of this movie - no one has a clue, and that is too bad - you would think that a professional critic would at least have some clue as to what the movie wants to say to the thinking world!