The Brother's Quay, Institute Benjamenta, 1995
One lesson repeated over and over: later in life we will all be something small and subordinate
On now at MoMA is a retrospective of the works of The Brother's Quay. I first came across their work in college and I fell in love with their dark, strange animated world. I saw the Institute Benjamenta back in 1995 when it first came out and I just recently got it on DVD. The film (their first feature-length) takes place in a school for the training of servants. Run by a cool, surrealist Nurse Ratchett, the school seems to be some sort of purgatory where men go to give up hope. You get the feeling no one there is ever going to be a servant. Just endlessly in training to be submissive.
