Phantom Museums is a 2 DVD set collecting the shorter works of the Quay Brothers.  Those on the first DVD are from between 1984 and 2003.  They provide commentaries for a couple of these. The second DVD has an earlier 1979 work that they didn't want included with the rest, alternate versions of a couple of the films on the first DVD, a couple of interviews with the identical twins, and a number of shorter works.  Their stop motion films are extraordinarily creepy and often disturbing, and have strong elements of surrealism, the gothic, horror, and the absurd.  They often use bizarre puppets in strange settings with dissonant music.  It's possible to see a sample of their work in low quality streaming by doing a video web search for "Brothers Quay."  Not all their work has been included on this DVD: one notable exception is a 2001 video they did for the band Sparklehorse, for their song "Dog Day/Heloise," featuring the singing of Tom Waits.  It's a cruder piece than most of their work, and is available online at the Sparklehorse website.

This collection is extraordinary, and has a sense of psychological depth reminiscent of dark surrealism.  They have influenced other filmmakers who have gained more popularity: most notably Terry Gilliam has cited them as an influence, and they have collaborated with Tim Burton.  They have made a video for the band His Name is Alive, for their song "Are We Still Married?", which is included in the collection.  Their obvious achievement is to create a sense of alienation and disturbance, so it is clear that their work has links to representations of mental illness, recalling surrealism's fondness for mentally disturbed states.  Yet they say little about mental illness; the most striking connection comes in their 2000 work, "In Absentia," which was a BBC commission making a film to accompany the music of contemporary German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.  Here they make explicit reference to outsider art in the Prinzhorn collection and in particular some of the work of Emma Hauck, which has handwriting repeated many times on a page.  They attempt to represent Hauck's psychosis with their own distortions of ordinary perception.  It is highly distinctive and identifiable as the work of the brothers Quay; as with most of their work, there's a danger that it relies on images are so absurd as to be funny.  The earnestness of their commentaries and interviews suggests they are not fully aware of the potential silliness or cliché of their style.  One has to view their work with an attitude of openness to resist mocking it, and not all viewers will be willing to do so.  Other viewers will find these works stunning, and there's no denying the consistency of the Quay's vision and innovative vigor demonstrated on these DVDs. 

Links:

• Zeitgeist movies page
• Senses of Cinema article on the Quay Brothers

© 2007 Christian Perring

Christian Perring, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dowling College, New York.

Categories: Movies