It is fairly rare that moving pictures are made with real artistic value in mind and even more rare when the endeavor pays off. Well, The Quay brothers' Institute Benjamenta is one such picture. At first sight it might appear a little too pretentious with an abounding array of hidden symbolism of a strange and antique meaning but then again, the basic thread of the picture is as old as humanity itself, pointing back to the ancestral roots of what makes us human: to love and to loose. It is remarkable the technique and the rendering of the camera in the Quay brothers' masterpiece. You cannot but help wondering if the images themselves are not centuries old and, in a sense, that is exactly the aim of the picture, to make itself look old and timeless, at the same time. I urge anyone who is really looking for that special feeling films give us, far from commercialism and hollywoodia, to see this movie. Sure, most of you will find it a little bit hard to watch but if you give it patience and let the mood of the picture fill you from within your imagination then I think this will be a rewarding cinematic experience.

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.

The first time I saw this movie, I fell asleep--but I don't blame the movie at all. I was tired. Before I fell asleep, I found it frustrating and oblique. But when I woke up, suddenly the dream logic of the movie seemed to make sense. Then I saw it again.Often compared to Eraserhead, I think this movie has much, much more to offer than Lynch's first feature. Institute Benjamenta doesn't have any kind of decoder...in fact, it refuses any. Filmed in a hazy, drowsy black-and-white, with scenes of flat, if surreal, simplicity, interspersed with dreamy, nonsensical interludes, it must be accepted before it can be enjoyed.

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.