Simply Perfect

good back-story, and good acting

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Stephen and Timothy Quay made quite a few animated shorts, but most of them were much longer than this. In fact, this is no doubt their shortest film. There is not that much to it. It's barely a minute long, and another reviewer said that was too short. Well, actually, I think that might be all the better, to leave the viewer hanging like that. It really doesn't need anymore.The film is very incoherent, and it was meant to be. It consists of a magnet spinning in place, and an animated puppet (which is a little creepy-looking) watching. It's a very simple set-up, yet is quite nightmarish. The Quay Bros made a series of Stille Nacht short films and this is the first. The others I'll definitely have to look at. Their other films are probably better in some regards, but this is an interesting diversion. If you're a fan of these surrealist art shorts like I am, then this little movie will meet your fancy.

This rather magnetic and unusual short is a very brief and simple one. Plot-wise, it doesn't have one-but in terms of mood and awe it is very great. Perhaps not so great as to deserve a perfect ten, but I did anyway. Didn't see why not, there's nothing wrong with it and it does everything it's supposed to in the minute space of time afforded it. The way it looks and feels is so hypnotising that the short seems to just whizz by in the span of a breath. It's weird, I've seen short films that were even smaller than this that somehow felt bigger, if you know what I mean. It makes me laugh how even with something as tiny and ungraspable as this some people have to analyse and declare what they think it "means" just so they can feel so much smarter than all the stupid little people who don't. There is nothing to figure out here, it's merely an enchanting flicker of Gothic magic to titillate and play off the senses, and to me it sort of feels like a test run they tried, to show the viewer a sample of the astonishing work they were capable of. ::: Not much to see, but there's so much with so little. There's a chipped and ragged-looking clown doll, and a spoon gathering what I'm guessing is metallic shavings that look like crawling moss. I used to like to magnetise and play with that stuff in woodwork class when I was a kid. I'm very tempted to describe the doll as "creepy", but it's not really. The whole short is alien and bizarre and completely surreal as heck, but it's definitely not frightening. To me, all of the Brothers Quay animations teeter on the edge of being eerie, but right from the beginning I always found all the ghost-like sounds and imagery within to be classy and soothing, in an ethereal kind of way. No, I don't believe it's horror what the Quay's were all about. They're all dark, and beautiful. Art for the eyes, for the mind, for the soul....

This is the kind of short that I could see several times, and it never fails to impress me: In only a minute, and without any dialogue, this fascinating short directed by the Quay Brothers ("Street of Crocodiles") has not only a wonderful, dream-like atmosphere and a magnificent visual style, but also posses a unique sense of beauty and lyricism that is hard to find in any other kind of film, even in those movies that try to hard to be "poetical" and "subjetive".However, this manages to work incredibly well, turning the whimsical qualities of the dreams into stop-motion animation. I think that if this short were made in live-action, it just won't have the same effect.

This movie comes straight out of your worst nightmares. I remember watching it when I was 13 years old; I had a fever and was staying at home. I could not forget this film until 16 years later, when I finally found who did it (and got the DVD).There's no plot whatsoever in this movie - I guess that's what makes it so special. As every other film by the Brothers Quay, this is a disjointed trip into someone's imagination. The best description I can find of it is that it's the closest thing I've ever seen to a dream - no wonder I thought for a while this movie didn't exist, and that I had dreamed it!The only thing going against it is that it's just too short - it was ideal for MTV, circa 1988, but it definitely leaves you expecting something more out of it.