Quay (Christopher Nolan) [Archive]

Stay Puft

11-08-2015, 09:41 AM

I believe this is only screening with the touring retrospective that Nolan curated of the Quay brothers. I assume it will be available some other way soon. However, I feel it only really works in the context of the retrospective. The curated experience begins with the previously undistributed "In Absentia" which is sort of a poor introduction to the Quay brothers but an interesting curio all the same. Nolan's film then introduces us to the studio where the Quay brothers work, and it serves as a nice introduction to the following two films that screen, "The Comb" and "Street of Crocodiles" respectively. The anecdotes shared in the film offer a couple neat details about the methods that the Quay brothers employ in their work (particularly clever, and I never would have guessed, is brushing the eyes of the puppets with olive oil). Outside of that it's a brief wisp of a film, a quick tour of the studio with no real insights to share. But as I said, it also works fine to provide context for the curated screening, and I'd say Nolan offered an enjoyable retrospective over all so a yay for the whole thing.

I mean, seriously, "Street of Crocodiles" projected in 35mm? Based Nolan. He's okay in my books.

(Fun fact: As far as I can tell, Nolan's short doc has a higher imdb rating than any single film credited to the Quay brothers. Let's all pretend to be surprised by that.)