Watch Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life For Free

Good concept, poorly executed.

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

...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.

It is fairly rare that moving pictures are made with real artistic value in mind and even more rare when the endeavor pays off. Well, The Quay brothers' Institute Benjamenta is one such picture. At first sight it might appear a little too pretentious with an abounding array of hidden symbolism of a strange and antique meaning but then again, the basic thread of the picture is as old as humanity itself, pointing back to the ancestral roots of what makes us human: to love and to loose. It is remarkable the technique and the rendering of the camera in the Quay brothers' masterpiece. You cannot but help wondering if the images themselves are not centuries old and, in a sense, that is exactly the aim of the picture, to make itself look old and timeless, at the same time. I urge anyone who is really looking for that special feeling films give us, far from commercialism and hollywoodia, to see this movie. Sure, most of you will find it a little bit hard to watch but if you give it patience and let the mood of the picture fill you from within your imagination then I think this will be a rewarding cinematic experience.

I would give a 7.5 to the movie, it really earned 3/4 of a perfect movie but many would not pay interest in this movie and people should. A bunch of interesting scenes really worth some interest even if some points are averaging the quality of the whole movie. Artistically, this movie is a cake. The lighting has become a reference for me as underexpose movie, such as Werckmeister Harmonies. I also would make cross references to this movie for the minimal use of speech and the intensity of the musical score, with a good presence, wisely use.Some animation scenes contains a lot of inner emotion such as the one with the bullet path. Actress Alice Krige is troubling in his role, bringing all the strengh and the intensity in the movie, bringing the movie to a straighter line than all the dreamy but unfocused storyline ; so goes the bad side of the movie. It is easy to excuse a movie that is about dramatize to be unclear, but the spectators can't see clues or signs about what the authors really wanted to say in here. Even if life is hard to understand, can it be an excuse to make things that don't have to have a point? It finally is a highly sensitive movie in which ends up with no storyline, just pictured emotions. But it was enough to make me enjoy the movie, and i hope people will see that this part worth the movie.

The comparison to David Lynch's "Eraserhead" is important but only in an opposite way. While Lynch's first feature (and still the best) relies strongly and almost only on directors vision and artistic "feel" (without any philosophy, just a free thought) this one found an inspiration in poetry and tried to transcend it into a living world. So, the wrong approach is more than obvious. How can anybody turn poetry into a motion picture. The answer is: only if you approach the film the same way as some poet might approach his poem - with senses and instinct, nothing else. And that is where the Quay brothers failed. They tried to put poetic vision into a hermetic space and, of course it doesn't work. Photography and acting are excellent but they are not much important here. For me, the whole scenery and the plot is unnecessary and got very little to do with the philosophy of dialogues. It is just there to fill the visuals. And then you end up with something that's not exactly a film but not exactly anything else either. Still, true artistic films are so rare today, that even a weak one is more than welcome in a world of superficial art. Let's just hope that it will be better next time, for brothers Quay and for us.