For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

Excellent but underrated film

Did you people see the same film I saw?

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.

When I first picked this film up I was intrigued at the basic idea and eager to see what would happen. I'm a fan of animation and love it when it's successfully merged with live action footage. However, the animation in this film was about all I enjoyed. Although it must be said that the actors' performances were excellent. The visual look - including the animation - gave a wonderfully unnerving air to the piece. However this was quality of unease was lost amongst the overblown imagery, both visual and in the script, that you were practically hammered over the head with. Most annoying about this was the relative lack of importance to the plot. It seemed that the plot was shoe horned in at irregular intervals giving a stuttering effect that detracted massively from the flow of the piece. The voice overs from Felisberto - especially the one at the end - very much felt like a desperate attempt to fill in gaping holes in the plot which had been ignored in favour of side issues such as the whole ant thing (and even that wasn't properly addressed). I'm afraid the whole piece came across as, at best, a 'reasonable first attempt', by a teenager who has spent far too much time reading DH Lawrence. Not what you expect from seasoned film makers at all.

That the final result of the Piano Tuner of Earthquakes is not really a great movie is a given when taking into account that the style of which the Quay Brothers have gone to almost perfectionist lengths to attain is always leaping ahead in strength when compared to the dialog or the performances. The story itself is meant as a pin-point line for the Quays to relay their staggering mix of mediums. After an opera singer, Malvina, dies during a performance (though not really 'dead' but captured by Doctor Droz, the not-quite-Phantom of the Opera of the story), a mild-mannered piano tuner who is sent out to Droz's estate, but not to fix pianos. Rather, he's sent to fix an automaton, and soon discovers what is going to really happen- the staging of a crazy, other-wordily 'opera' with Malvina, and decides he has to save her. The Quays' choices in actors- Cesar Saracho as Felisberto; Gottfried John as Doctor Droz; Amira Casar as the helpless lady of the film, Malvina; and Assumpta Sera as Droz's caretaker/sometimes seducer of Felisberto- are more based on their appearances and movements in scenes than really for ability in speech and emotion. Not that they don't have a moment or two when they get to connect with the poetic dialog (John gets a good deal of this at times, like when he is shown plotting away with his own agenda at hand). But it's really seeing them, with their distinctive looks, Saracho with his bony figure cast alongside the beautiful Casar, in relation to what comes forward on screen. To say it's a feast for the eyes is an understatement, and to try and describe much of what comes out in the Quay's design could make this too revealing and long a review. Yet it's the abandon of the usual logic and going head-on into this world that earns their comparison to the likes of Cocteau: we're given a look, quite often, at the automaton and its movements, the gears and wheels churning in titled compositions, and cut against the other seamlessly stop-motion movements. But more importantly, this is set against the actors, and then with other visuals such as inexplicable stop-motion creatures like a woodcutter, or figures in the opera scenes, and if one were to watch it with the sound turned off at home it wouldn't make much of a difference with the visceral impact of it all. Their design attempts to keep the audience in this world from the moment we see Dr. Droz's castle, which is a computer-generated creation, but a much more intricate and detailed kind of set-piece, cut and chiseled in rock and steel. With many of these scenes, set against the music of Duncan and Slaski, which is as a given atmospheric and creepy, and a very unsentimental and moving ending, The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes knocks it out of the parts on technical terms, and should not disappoint the die-hard fans of the Quay brothers' previous works. It's also of no surprise now seeing it why it's the only film that Gilliam has ever had a producer credit on that has not been one of his own directorial efforts- for the kind of mind that loves what can come about through in holding on to an idea and seeing it through in a fantastic manner, it's a marvel. Just don't try and make sense of it all though. 7.5/10

I really wanted to like this movie, but it was just imposable. The acting was ultra hammy, the plot was annoying, and the pace was SLOW, sooo slowwwwww. The whole time sitting in the theater i wanted the movie to end. Twenty minuets into a films and I'm praying for an ending. Sure some of the visuals were nice, but c'mon guys, I mean really! And for a movie about a guy tuning magical instruments there really wasn't much music to speak of. The music there was was annoying, and boring. There were sound loud shrill sounds at times too, those were also annoying. Mainly this film managed to bore me, and creep me out at the same time.I'm glad its over. I need to go see "Tideland" and wash this bad taste out of my mouth.

Every single appearance in this magical world pretends to have a meaning. Maybe it has, maybe not, that makes no difference. It's just a dependency, an intimate relation which chains you at the screen, forgiving you, still busy in wondering who and why... it embraces you in a cozy fake world, more real than any realistic projection. The discounted love story plot is just a background for the astonishing images and sounds, artificial and natural visions, insane but familiar feelings which make this hours pregnant. Erotism is driving the puppets (aka all of them, the characters) straight into their toy alcove, still standing on the edge of perversion and passion. You'll love these dropped confetti, if you're in a receptive state of mind.