Institute Benjamenta (DVD & Blu-ray) DVD+Blu-ray, 1996

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MovieMail's Review

The Quays' debut live-action feature, starring Alice Krige and Mark Rylance, is haunting, suggestively erotic, minutely detailed and very beautiful indeed. Just go with the flow, says Graeme Hobbs.

A beautiful, mesmerising film that carries the ebb and flow of a silky grey dreamscape, Institute Benjamenta was the first live action feature from the Quay Brothers, the brilliant creators of strange and minutely detailed animated worlds often inspired by European literature. Here they take Robert Walser’s 1909 novel Jakob von Gunten as their source, which sees a man (played by a scampish Mark Rylance) enrol at a decrepit and distinctly odd school for domestic servants, run by Herr Benjamenta and his sister Lisa (Alice Krige), whose long-suppressed emotions are brought dangerously near to the surface by his arrival.

A unique film of whispered mysteries and keyhole glimpses of enigmatic scenes, it is suffused with an entirely suggestive eroticism centred around Lisa and the forbidden promise of touch. It being made by the Quays however, it is also a film that takes place in a veritable cabinet of curiosities, with its multitude of objects pictured in an incessant play of watery light that roams over the hermetic interiors. Lech Jankowski’s soundtrack – melancholy, eerie, jagged, is the perfect accompaniment to the haunting images.

Graeme Hobbs on 23rd April 2010
View all 252 of Graeme Hobbs's reviews

Film Information

Director - Quay Brothers

Produced - 1996

Main Language - English

Countries & Regions - British Film

Cast - Gottfried John, Mark Rylance, Alice Krige

DVD+Blu-ray Details

Certificate:	PG	Publisher:	BFI	Region:	2
Length:	104 mins	Cat No:	BFIB1033
Format:	DVD+Blu-ray B&W

DVD+Blu-ray Extras

2 discs
Dual Format Edition containing Blu-ray and DVD
Inside the Institute: An In-between world - a brand new documentary about the making of the film, featuring actors Mark Rylance, Alice Krige, as well as the directors, writer, DoP and film editor
Original trailer
Eurydice - She, So Beloved (Quay Brothers, 2007, 12 mins): Monteverdi's opera L'Orfeo
The Comb (Quay Brothers, 1990)
On-set footage
Songs for Dead Children (Quay Brothers / Steve Martland, 2003, 23 mins): Steve Martland's Street Songs as seen by the visionary animators
Fully illustrated booklet containing newly commissioned essays, biographies and stills by celebrated photographer Jill Furmanovsky.

Film Description

Jakob (Mark Rylance) wants to be of service. Admitted to a peculiar school for servants run by domineering Johannes (Gottfried John) and his sorrowful sister Lisa (Alice Krige), and perplexed at first by his often-absurd new surroundings, Jakob gradually uncovers the mystical Institute's secrets and, by extension, those of life itself.

The Quay Brothers' first feature film is based on Swiss writer Robert Walser's book about a dilapidated mid-European school for servants. It has the atmosphere of a contemporary fairy tale, both fantastic and mystical, with an extraordinary, luminescent atmosphere, mesmerising imagery and an underlying mood of intense repressed eroticism that is punctuated with touches of dark wry humour.

The Quays' visionary style, stunning monochrome photography by Nic Knowland, Larry Sider's rich soundscapes and Leszek Jankowski's incredible music breathe life into every corner of this fragile world, which shimmers with repressed energy and hypnotic beauty.