Animation Legends Quay Brothers Head to ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’ Where ‘Mystery Is a Potent Force’ (EXCLUSIVE)

As a seasoned movie buff with a penchant for animation and a soft spot for tragic tales of bygone eras, I find myself utterly captivated by the return of the Quay brothers to feature films with “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.” Their uncanny ability to breathe life into the works of Polish Jewish writer Bruno Schulz is nothing short of extraordinary.

Renowned animators Stephen and Timothy Quay, long-time figures in the animation industry, are back with a new feature film titled “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.” This return marks their revisit to the works of Polish Jewish author Bruno Schulz for the Venice premiere.

Sold by the Match Factory, watch its exclusive clip here:

They stumbled upon Schultz’s work in the 1970s; coincidentally, it was during this time that Polish director Wojciech Jerzy created a movie adaptation of the same narrative.

“During our visit to poster designer Andrzej Klimowski in Warsaw, he acquainted us with not just Schulz, but also his contemporaries Gombrowicz and Witkacy, as well as the music of Krzysztof Komeda and Ewa Demarczyk. They also mentioned other significant Polish artists. The Quay brothers often speak better when their quotes are presented together.”

“All of a sudden, the realm of Bruno Schulz became vividly present in our minds and within our grasp. It was his ‘Treatise on Tailor’s Dummies’ that served as a gateway, allowing us to explore how animation could intertwine with the world of Schulz and vice versa.”

Despite the fact that it’s been 19 years since their last feature “The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes,” they have already adapted his seemingly unadaptable work in “Street of Crocodiles.” However, they continue to refrain from claiming credit for introducing him to a broader audience.

“It seems many people were unaware or indifferent to the fact that it was inspired by Schulz’s short story. Instead, they viewed it as merely an intricate tale featuring spooky puppets wandering through a complex maze,” is one way to rephrase this statement in natural and easy-to-read language.

Unable to separate Schulz’s life from his work — “This new feature is secretly, if not entirely, dedicated to his ‘J’: Józefina Szelińska, whom he’d been engaged to but never married” — they echo his pain, as well as his tragic end. In 1942, Schulz was killed by a Gestapo officer.

“Beyond the gradual collection of tales was the grim, inevitable conclusion to his life, a life largely spent in the small town of Drohobycz [now in Ukraine], which he rarely ventured from. This sorrow that persists to this day is reflected in every line of his work,” they remark. The Quay brothers hailed from Norristown, Pennsylvania, a short while after, in 1947.

“In peaceful periods, we visited Drohobycz, but it never seemed like the place where Schulz lived or even died – not even with a memorial marking the execution site. We wandered through the vast, neglected cemetery, supposedly the burial ground for his body, yet there was no indication that he lay beneath that soil.”

Incorporating both puppetry and real-life scenes, they portray a young man traveling to a peculiar, slumberous sanatorium located in the distant region of Galicia, seeking his missing father. However, this location appears to be infected with something unusual, as events taking place there seem to spread rapidly.

“Mystery is such a potent force and we’re drawn to it,” observe the directors.

“In our movie, the Sanatorium serves as a vast, enigmatic world that Józef struggles to understand and ultimately succumbs to. He’ll eventually locate his father, only to lose him in a dream. As events unfold, Józef will split into three distinct entities; one will perish, another will be cursed to roam the endless halls of the Sanatorium, and the last one will reboard the same train he initially arrived on.”

Just as their favorite author fearlessly navigates the blurred lines between dreams and waking life, they effortlessly blend together worlds that appear to be polar opposites.

The film was always supposed to be in Polish.

As a movie enthusiast, I found myself immersed in the cinematic world of this film, where dialogues were primarily delivered in Polish, specifically Schulz’s unique dialect. Now, I must admit, being fluent in Polish myself, I appreciated the authenticity it brought to the narrative. However, the question remains: Will the “Schulzologists” and the discerning Polish audience find our fictional portrayal convincing? Or will they perceive it as an intrusion into their cultural landscape? This is the challenge we, as creators, have taken upon ourselves in this production.

Tadeusz Janiszewski, Wioletta Kopańska, Andrzej Kłak, Allison Bell, and Zenaida Yanowsky collaborate on the project “Sanatorium,” a production of Koninck Studios SpK Galicia and IKH Pictures Production, with Lucie Conrad and Izabella Kiszka-Hoflik as the producers. Viola Fügen and Michael Weber serve as co-producers.

In simpler terms, although the imaginative world created by the Quay brothers could be too intense for younger audiences, they don’t seem to be swayed by the popular phrase “adult animation” that is often discussed in major animation events.

“They explain that our focus has been on ‘adult animation’ not because we have any specific agenda, but rather due to the complex nature of Bruno Schulz’s work, which might be too mature for young audiences. We don’t usually consider age-related aspects in our creative process.”

In our production, we selectively incorporated passages from three distinct works: ‘Sanatorium’, ‘The Comet’, and ‘The Republic of Dreams’. Notably, the latter serves as the concluding segment, delivering a dreamlike, ethereal vision through voiceover narration. This vision, while impossibly perfect, is both nameless and universal, serving as a profound critique of our turbulent era.

“His own words have the final word in our film.”

2024-08-29 18:50

Animation Legends Quay Brothers Head to ‘Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass’ Where ‘Mystery Is a Potent Force’ (EXCLUSIVE)

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