The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes

To watch The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes is to enter the fabulist universe ofthe Brothers Quay, as unique and arcane as any imaginable.The twins goal was to make a poetic science fiction film inspired by thenovella ''The Invention of Morel'' by the Argentine writer Adolfo BioyCasares. The story concerns Malvina (Amira Casar),a famous opera singer abducted on the eve of her wedding by the obsessiveDr. Droz (Gottfried John), who takes her away to the Carpathian Mountains.An innocent piano tuner (Cesar Sarachu) is summoned to the mad Droz'ssecluded villa to service his strange musical automatons. When he learns ofthe doctor's plans to stage a ''diabolical opera,'' he sets out to save thebeautiful Malvina. This film is haunted by the crazed doctor's toylike mechanical creations.Visual references abound - in particular Arnold Böcklin's painting ''Islandof the Dead'' - and the brothers also cite Antonioni and Magritte. Music hereis crucial, as Droz is a failed opera composer, and the Quays have assembledan hypnotic soundscape that mixes elements of Vivaldi with music fromcomposer Trevor Duncan, whose work was used in Chris Marker's La Jetée.The end result is an evocative dream, part fairytale and part nightmare. ThePiano Tuner of Earthquakes is a daring trip into a world half-recognized andhalf-remembered, but impossible to forget. In 1995 Quay’s Institute Benjamenta won the prize for the Best Feature at the Stockholm International Film Festival.PAUL U. BERGSTRÖM