AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

Lawbolisted Powerful

SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Graham Greene A difficult and dreamlike film that mixes elements of the period squalor and steam punk expressionism of an early David Lynch, with the archaic self-awareness of Guy Maddin at his most starkly referential. Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life (1995) will surely repel just as many viewers as it excites; with its combination of slow, abstract, carefully composed black and white imagery and elliptical narrative structures filled with codes and ciphers managing to be both pretentious and fascinating in equal measures. At its best, the atmosphere is continually beguiling and often like nothing else we've ever experienced; with every single frame of this bizarre odyssey into the notions of fractured, nocturnal ambiance and closeted sensuality being tightly composed and beautiful to look at. However, at its worst, it is infuriatingly beyond comprehension; with the mood and the tone leading the film, almost like poetry, beyond the outdated notions of structure or momentum, and instead leaving us with a film that is overwhelming in its unique vision and design, but simply devoid of any sense of feeling or philosophy for an audience to fully grasp on to.This isn't a flaw in itself, as cinema is ultimately beyond the trite notions of character and plot, but even then, a film should, in my mind at least, have the potential to make us think and feel. As with all great art there should be some idea attached to it; something that stands out and resonates either emotionally or intellectually (or both) that makes the process of viewing more rewarding on an entirely personal level. You have to really search for it here, and clearly, judging from the past reviews, my fellow commentators have also struggled to unearth any overall sense of meaning from the film's emptily cryptic images and emphasis on dreamlike atmospherics. If the point of the film was simply to conjure this world within the mind of the viewer, then the film is a great success; with the meandering, drifting as if sleepwalking tone of the film being both striking and evocative from the first frame until the last. That said, there's only so far we can go with lovingly choreographed sequences of dance and movement combined with the amazing use of editing and shot construction, which finds stories in even the most minor or mundane of actions, though sadly, nothing that would point to an overall theme or interpretation.I suppose it is indicative of the directors' joint backgrounds in animation, or their fondness and appreciation for the films of Jan Švankmajer or Juraj Herz, with the emphasis placed on the look and feel of the film, rather than any kind of connection to the material. Or maybe there is and we just need to look deeper; to scratch beneath the surface and persevere with the free-flowing narrative, to see the clues that lurk beneath. Regardless of how you approach it - and with these particular "flaws" in mind - the film is still a fascinating work; with that atmosphere and somewhat Eastern European look and feel of the film being unrivalled, and again, unlike anything else we've ever experienced. Added to this, the central performances from Mark Rylance and Alice Krige are both exceptionally detailed, even within such an evasive and enigmatic construct. At any rate, Institute Benjamenta is certainly a difficult film to recommend, but an even more difficult one to dismiss; with the hints of the brothers' earlier, animated work - such as Street of Crocodiles (1986) and Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies (1988) drawing obvious parallels - and combining it with an approach that is memorable and purely cinematic.

swearm_x ...especially Alice Krige! The directing, however, I would have liked more without its over enthusiastic surreal demeanour. The story and essence of the picture as well as its atmosphere and its meaning in reference to the real world fall much to short. What a waste of attitude and art as the ideas of presenting and most acting were captivating. But in lack of a coherent story the movie became what it is...art, with a meaning somewhere to find (Dalí meets a narcissistic form of Kafka) - instead of a beautiful and moving picture with deep meaning. All just for art's sake? e.g. why is she speaking Dutch and other languages several times? Why overdoing it? Why this shabby and in a way arrogant symbolism?Didn't read the book by Robert Walser (Jakob von Gunten) - but now I'm interested and hope it's better.

Afracious 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.

Milo Jerome 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.