England,
1986, 20 min
Shown in 1987
CREDITS
- dir
-
Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay
- prod
-
Keith Griffiths
- scr
-
Keith Griffiths
- cam
-
Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay
- source
-
Koninck Studios
- gga award
-
Bronze Prize, Film & Video: Animation
-
COMMENTS
Part of Minding Their K’s and Q’s. Also Shown with Hellfire and Moments Without Proper Names as a program of GGA winners.
OTHER
The animated films of the Brothers Quay (Philadelphia-born twins Stephen and Timothy who, with Keith Griffiths, formed Atelier Koninck in England) reveal great originality in inventing astonishingly elaborate, wrenchingly atmospheric miniature worlds. Strongly linked with Eastern European surrealism, these intricately detailed short films have the impact of much longer works. Leos Janacek: Intimate Excursions and The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer are tributes to Czech artists, composer and animator respectively, in which the Quays evoke the tributee’s work while also drawing on their own image obsessions. Little Songs of the Chief Officer of Hunar Louse, or This Unnameable Little Broom, which announces itself as a “Largely Disguised Reduction of the Epic of Gilgamesh,” both trivializes and magnifies an adventure in a surreal room. Street of Crocodiles, inspired by the fiction of Bruno Schulz and widely regarded as the Quay’s best work to date, is a richly haunting mood piece set in a dreamlike city/theater/labyrinth (shot in 35mm).
—Peter Hogue
On display in a deserted provincial museum is an old viewing machine with a map indicating the precise district of the Street of Crocodiles. A caretaker activates the machine... and the strange world of puppet animation takes shape.
FACTOID #304
After its U.S. premiere at the 1969 Festival, the print of Z by Costa-Gavras was stolen from the locked projection room of the Masonic Auditorium.
