A decade ꩵon from their debut feature Institute Benjamenta, the Quay Brothers return with this oddity - a fantastical mixture of stop-motio🍰n animation, live action and trompe l'oeil effects.
The titular piano-tuner Felisberto (César Saracho) has been called to a remote villa to test the mechanical automata created by Dr Droz (Gottfried John). It's there that he encounters amnesiac Malvina (Amira Casar) - and Felisberto is the spitting image of her lost 𒆙lover...
There's no denying the fertile visual imagination that has conjured up such a singular cinematic universe, yet the ꦚfilm's weaknesses - impenetrable dialogue, incoherent storytelling, indifferent performances - are hard to ignore. Even the lush, romantic music is borrowed from Chris Marker's time-travel classic La Jetée.
