The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

2005 · 99 min · ★ 6.3 · Romance, Fantasy, Drama, Music

Dark fairytale about a demonic doctor who abducts a beautiful opera singer with designs on transforming her into a mechanical nightingale.

Directed by Stephen Quay · Written by Alan Passes

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Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?
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A compilation of shorts by the Quay Brothers presented as a feature film.
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A puppet, newly released from his strings, explores the sinister room in which he finds himself.
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A documentary on the subject of the collections of books, instruments and medical anomalies at The College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the Mutter Museum housed there. This short film represents the first to be made by the internationally recognized Quay Brothers in the United States. While not a stop-motion animation film, a form for which the Quays are best known, the entire film is vibrantly constructed and 'animated'. Musical score by composer Tim Nelson and voice-over provided by Derek Jacobi.
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