Review: The Brothers Quay's return to features is challenging, haunting

I was first introduced to the work of the Quay Brothers about a decade ago, where there was new Blu-ray release that collected some of their work, and I was fortunate enough to receive a copy. I delved in and was duly (obviously) impressed and inspired. The twin animators are known for their detailed miniatures, haunting imagery, and dreamlike narratives. That they tend to work in short-form makes sense, as it's easier to "get away" with fragmented storytelling when time is of the essence. But even when they venture into feature-length territory, it's hard to begrudge them what might be deemed narrative shortcomings, so enrapturing are their visions.

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, inspired by the work of Bruno Schulz (and taking its name from one of his novels), is the first feature from the Quays in a matter of decades. In my September preview, I included a neat little logline/synopsis for the film, one that -- having now seen it myself -- I would've found nearly impossible to pull out on my own. True to form, this is a challenging film to parse. It isn't even that it stands in opposition to the so-called "rules" of cinematic storytelling. It feels instead like it's free of those expectations, that it exists in some other world or on some other plane where a three-act structure isn't even a concept to be grasped at, much less achieved. I find myself struggling to find words for what I've seen, which I think might be an apt viewer experience for such a thing. I guess I'll try to untangle it here, as futile an effort as that might prove.

There's a blend of live-action and animation here, but most of the film is animated. Beautifully so. There's a nightmarish quality to just about everything we see. The puppets look like they've emerged from a nuclear wasteland, their faces peeling or burned, some wrapped in bandages, others sporting extra appendages. Much of the film is in ghoulish greyscale, or softer sepia tones. The shocks of color are indeed shocks, so few and far between are they. It's a film that feels like it will always go where it needs (or wants) to go; again, there's a freedom to it. It's mostly not in color, but sometimes it is. It's mostly animated, but sometimes it isn't. There's something liberating about watching this unfold, knowing that you'll never know where it's going. And maybe not even knowing where you were by the end.

There's a sort of a frame story here, where a man is in possession of a strange box with seven lenses on its various surfaces. Within the box is a dead retina. Once a year, the box is able to catch the sunlight just so, and at that time, each lens reveals some of the last images that retina ever saw when it was still alive, and part of a person. So, my understanding is that most of what we see for the rest of the movie (including all of the animated scenes) are ghostly images from the dead retina.

And that's the only way death is on this movie's mind. The closest thing we have to a protagonist, Josef, is visiting his father at the eponymous sanatorium, and it's a thoroughly ghoulish place. Someone there tells him that Josef's father is dead, at least in the country he came from, but in this country, which exists in a different time and place, he is still alive. The death hasn't caught up to him here yet. And his father is unaware that he's dead anywhere, and that that death might be coming for him rather soon. Later in the film, there's a lovely bit of narration about the randomness of the end of the world, the lack of rhyme and reason, the lack of a period or exclamation part. So, too, I guess, does death find us all. There isn't a meaning to it, just a factuality. It's something that happens to us all, and carries nothing with it beyond that fact.

Which, of course, had me spiraling in different ways, because we as humans so desperately want death to mean something, because we so desperately, too, want life to mean something. And I guess maybe it all does in some small personal way, or on a grander scale for people who help to shape the world. But even the most influential person will eventually decay into nothingness, worm food, just like the least influential person will. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, retina to retina.

This had me thinking, too, about how film as an art form is a way to overcome death, because we can still watch Judy Garland and Cary Grant and all the other great dead stars in all of their great performances, and it makes them feel alive, current, still with us, even though, of course, they aren't. They're long gone. But such thoughts gave extra electricity to the time-loop moments in Sanatorium, and extra gravity to the whole thing. Because so much of the movie is being observed by the live-action characters, I kept thinking about how much of life is about performing and witnessing performance, watching and being watched. It's a heavy burden to be a person, to move through this world, to want and to love and to care for other people who we will watch wither and die. Just as it's hard to watch the filmmakers we love grow old and die. So many lights flicker out. All of them, in fact.

I wonder if that was at all weighing on the Brothers Quay as they crafted this haunting tale. They're approaching 80. They probably have a few more films in them yet, but maybe not many more. Is part of this film an exercise in preparing for the inevitable? Or a way to say that they aren't afraid?

Because, weirdly, as creepy and ghoulish as this film sometimes is (certain shots feel like capital-H Horror), there's something so comforting about it, soothing, even. Once you settle into its dense and dusty atmosphere, it feels almost like an off-key lullaby, one that might accompany you all the way to the other side, to a place where you should be able to finally, truly rest.