for atmosphere. and for the performances. for the fragile border between dream and reality. and for the details. a dark story , an obscure institute . a parable about communication and desire and school and skills and expectations. after its end, not the story remains as memory but crumbs of scenes who seems be words of a prophecy. because the ladder air is the only significant piece of a story about nothing. sure, the memories about similar stories are many. important is the small detail who defines this film - the ambiguity of things, gestures and words.like a huge illusion. so, a film remembering Kafka.

Pretension with a microbudget. Larry Miller says, 'art shouldn't wring its hands': I was so happy to have found this DVD after years of searching, but got weltschmerz instead of zeitgeist. Dreary, angsty, self-congratulating symbolism, and may I never see another antler, even an ironic pair. I'm a fan of Mark Rylance's stage and most of his film work, but this is a clinker. It reminds me of another wankerish flick, Guy Maddin's 'Tales from the Gimli Hospital': same crummy film stock, same low-budget pretension, same deep need for the directors to use their audience as therapists. 'Institute' appears to have been shot with a videocam & bargain-basement special effects doubtless by the director brothers; it has the makings of an OK 4-minute video, but the occasional beautiful shot of Mark Rylance's beautiful mouth can't make up for the wanna-be Bergman antics. Nine, circles, hell, we get it. Sheesh. you don't have to hit us over the head with the cloven hoof.Run, my friends, run far, far away. Rent 'Wild Strawberries' for the Bergman, 'Angels and Insects' for the Rylance, 'Excalibur' for the Orff, and 'Blood and Donuts' for the low-budget horror passion play that *works*: you'll thank me. Two stars for Mark Rylance's mouth's acting.

It is fairly rare that moving pictures are made with real artistic value in mind and even more rare when the endeavor pays off. Well, The Quay brothers' Institute Benjamenta is one such picture. At first sight it might appear a little too pretentious with an abounding array of hidden symbolism of a strange and antique meaning but then again, the basic thread of the picture is as old as humanity itself, pointing back to the ancestral roots of what makes us human: to love and to loose. It is remarkable the technique and the rendering of the camera in the Quay brothers' masterpiece. You cannot but help wondering if the images themselves are not centuries old and, in a sense, that is exactly the aim of the picture, to make itself look old and timeless, at the same time. I urge anyone who is really looking for that special feeling films give us, far from commercialism and hollywoodia, to see this movie. Sure, most of you will find it a little bit hard to watch but if you give it patience and let the mood of the picture fill you from within your imagination then I think this will be a rewarding cinematic experience.

I would give a 7.5 to the movie, it really earned 3/4 of a perfect movie but many would not pay interest in this movie and people should. A bunch of interesting scenes really worth some interest even if some points are averaging the quality of the whole movie. Artistically, this movie is a cake. The lighting has become a reference for me as underexpose movie, such as Werckmeister Harmonies. I also would make cross references to this movie for the minimal use of speech and the intensity of the musical score, with a good presence, wisely use.Some animation scenes contains a lot of inner emotion such as the one with the bullet path. Actress Alice Krige is troubling in his role, bringing all the strengh and the intensity in the movie, bringing the movie to a straighter line than all the dreamy but unfocused storyline ; so goes the bad side of the movie. It is easy to excuse a movie that is about dramatize to be unclear, but the spectators can't see clues or signs about what the authors really wanted to say in here. Even if life is hard to understand, can it be an excuse to make things that don't have to have a point? It finally is a highly sensitive movie in which ends up with no storyline, just pictured emotions. But it was enough to make me enjoy the movie, and i hope people will see that this part worth the movie.