The Piano Tuner Of Earthquakes (2005)

7 out of 7 people found the following review helpful:

The oblique purveyors of shadows

mptye from from huddersfield, 6th July, 2006

Institute Benjamenta - the Quay's earlier live action film - had all the menace, mystery and sensuality that this film ought to have had. The animation isn't as tight as any of these artists previous works, and if I see one more self unscrewing screw in modern animation films I'm going to stab my eyes out with a victorian porcelain dolls head. The film is often impenetrably dark / pointlessly out-of-focus / both. There are however occassionally scenes of enormous beauty and sensuality. But a series of tableaux don't make a film.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Fat Moon

Simon Cockle from Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, England, UK, 21st September, 2006

A huge cheese-dream of a film, sinister like Angela Carter and David Lynch's lovechild got drunk on Metz with the Judder Man. But films that look great have to work hard to sound great and, like the automata in the film, the characterisation is artificial; we don't care for the characters because they function like lines of abstract poetry. Worth a watch but hard work.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review helpful:

DEMONIC!

peggoula from , 30th November, 2007

As a fan of Borthers Quay previous work, and a filmmaker myself eager to learn from 'auters', I was looking forward to watching this movie. But..please God make it end...I was wishing from the early stages of the film. Self-indulgent, formulaic, emotion-less, decontectualised, pretentious, this film is almost a celebration of the personal obsession of an artist filmmkaker that looks inwards rather than shares his vision. The landscape was not at all dystopic, actors were all somehow wrong, and the magic realism element never really worked. If the subject-matter was about human dependency, it was certainly not articulating, as human drama was not in the play. If it was just an experimentation of the form to create a post-modern fairy-tale, it was a failure. A total disappointment.

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2 out of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Confusing

A Customer from uk, 7th April, 2007

Not quite sure what the director was getting at, but he did a terrible job of it. Need to do better delivery, lack the bite or wow factor

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Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

A Customer from SHIPSTON ON STOUR, 17th December, 2008

Felt like I had missed half an hour of the film took a while to work out what was going on.. Visually very dark . Very disappointing

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Visual Perfection

AlisaBriggs from from LEEDS, 15th September, 2008

Such ponderous and intricate feature as 'The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes' actively resists any attempt of trite summing up by means of the haunting beauty of its unfolding infinities. The film, which combines live action and animation, presents a very poetic rendition of sci-fi theme; though some viewer may be put off outright by the disjointed story structure. But why should be a film of this kind judged by the coherence of its narration, when there's so much more to it then just a dramatic plot? Symbolic dialogues, hypnotizing soundtrack, the whirlpool of fascinating and murk visual digressions, which obviously dominate the film and form its dynamics. After all, 'there is no need to wake when the sleep time is so pleasant'. In terms of formal organisation - 'an extreme stylisation of mise-en-scene' (though the Quay brothers' style is undoubtedly unparagoned, unique), surreal grandeur of it may be compared to the 'gothic' aspects of German Expressionist cinema. One even more obvious influence of the Quay animators is Czech master Jan Svankmajer, whom the brothers paid homage in 1984 by releasing a documentary film The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer.

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Wake me up before you go-go

Whipster from from Shropshire, 19th August, 2008

I'm a fan of surreal movies. I'm a fan of the Quay Brothers surreal animation style. But...I'm certainly not a fan of this film. Tedious, self indulgent and incredibly boring! It doesn't work on any level but mostly because of its pretentious assumption that the watcher will be fascinated by its imagined world. But the place sucks! The attention to detail will bore you rigid after only ten minutes or so. Worst of all - there isn't a single piano in it! Piano tuners should avoid with all their might...

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Customer Review

A Customer from UK, 23rd June, 2008

I was extremely disappointed by the brothers second live action feature. Visually this is an absolute treat to the eyes, but unfortunately the narrative is an absolute mess. This is a shame because I think the story is a brilliant idea that perfectly fits in to their back catalogue of work.. But it's as if they became a bit lost when filming on a bigger scale. Also I found that whenever there was a brief piece of stop-motion, I was reminded of how brilliant their short model animations are - and how terrible this is!

The hour long interview with the brothers (special feature) is interesting and informative. Reflecting on their childhood/education and how they became animators. They also talk about the Channel 4 backers wanting this second feature to have well known actors, be in colour and have more of a story... Maybe next time they should put two fingers up at the fat cats in their offices and go off and do what they want to do. Grrrrrrrrrr - makes me sick seeing good talent being miss guided in such a way.

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