If you're expecting this film to be about a comb, then forget it. In the beginning of this 18-minute long Quay movie, there is indeed a comb, but it is only a brief shot and after that we see no more of it. Supposedly, the comb belongs to a sleeping woman who, (and this is my interpretation) is having weird dreams. A creepy, china doll's hands detach and they carry around a ladder. The hands twiddle with a stick. The woman's fingers tap. In general, weird stuff happens.If you've never seen the Brothers Quays' work before, then I guarantee that you'll probably lose the "story-line" (ha!) of this movie fast. That's because the fact is, none of these Quay movies don't have any. In fact, of all the Quay movies I've seen so far, this movie has THE most of a plot I've ever seen. Mostly, there's no humans present in them either, so this one is actually different in that regard. Otherwise, the usual Quay imagery occurs: cracked antique dolls, amazingly smooth animation, etc. So, if by now you're convinced the Quays belong in an asylum, then this ain't for you. Only certain people are actually going to find this appealing (and I noticed one of the other reviewers has no fondness at all for this kind of filmmaking and has hated on every Quay film I've seen so far). Like the other reviewer, I too found this a little slow-moving in action. Little happens on screen at times and sometimes it's just camera movement. Nevertheless, those who enjoy these Avant-garde flicks will find this a worthwhile attempt at portraying a dream on film.

"The Comb" is an animated short film from the Brothers Quay and this one has its 25th anniversary this year. At slightly over 17 minutes, it is a bit longer than most of their other works. But that does not make it any better. It is an epitome of style over substance as usual with them, there is no real story in here either, also as usual again, and the animation looks like something that could have done in the 60s too. Very disappointing. I may be a bit biased when it comes to them, but I have not seen a single convincing work so far by the Quay Twins. No idea why they are held in such high regard. Not even the music in this one could convince me and that is usually their strongest area. Not recommended.

Oh my lord,the Quay Brothers were so great! True artists, they created their own very unique little medium, and I for one think that is really cool. Okay, this one's a little than your average Quay short, and I personally think that didn't work out so good with the "Street of Crocodiles", but I really love this, even though unlike a lot of the others by the Brothers that I've seen, which are practically impossible to figure out and are great that way as they're not meant to be, and you're just supposed take all the deep moods and Gothic imagery and make of it what you will, "The Comb" here has factors that make it a lot easier to grasp, although you do still get oh so wonderfully swept away in the decrepit weirdness. It sort of gives the game away right at the beginning with the phrase:"From the Museums of *Sleep*". And it's the only one I've seen to feature a real live-action human being, but even she's kinda hazy. She was like a sort of focal point. As much as I love the masterful surrealism of these films, it was a welcome change to have an anchor of sorts to pin down the overall picture and render things a little more tangible. The little chipped china-doll from "Dramolet" returns, and the flying disembodied robot hands from "Tales From Vienna Woods". There's two of them now, and it turns out they belong to the doll. What a superior haunting vision, it's all so endlessly strange, idiosyncratic and utterly hypnotic that it's pretty hard not to also find it greatly charming. They're always that way. Everything, the light the walls the floors, the muted background voices at the edge of awareness, like whispers or the rustle of pages being turned-all of it wrong, yet so immensely appealing and right! All conventional views are twisted and askew, constantly on the edge of hysteria, everything is so dreamlike and unreal-no, not dreamlike, that's not the right word in this instance. It's nightmarish, but I strongly disagree that any of these films are ever about the fear. To its credit though, Comb is eerily animated, to the point where I felt a little unnerved. It has a strong sense of foreboding about it. ::: The helter-skelter quest of the ragged puppet seems to be a window into the darker recesses of the woman's mind. And from the look of things, this woman is not well at all... Was the doll a metaphor for her innocence? Her inner-turmoil, forever climbing up and down ladders leading to nowhere that I'm guessing were representations of the layers of her consciousness, trying to reach heaven knows what but never quite getting there because at the critical point the woman tumbles out of bed and awakens from long fitful slumber. The way the doll mirrors her actions suggests that everything seen was her warped "dream". I love the poignant serenity of the final scene where the ghostly woman brushes her hair with pallid and sickly-looking beautiful hands in some lightless place in the world... Her knowing and enigmatic little smile is most intriguing. And then, just as with all Quay short films after it's over I don't know quite how to feel about all I've just seen, but I'm very satisfied and glad that I watched it.

In the Brothers' Quay own words, taking everything as a Freudian symbol is a little too easy and kind of turns 90% of cinema into one single picture. However, this movie is so, well, Freudian. From the undertitle ("from the Museums of Sleep") to the in uteral mise-en-scene, this is a cinepoem of free association.A lot of Quay brothers features have that feeling, but most of them are set in dusty corners, seemingly within the space of cracks in the walls and dustbunnies, what happens underneath your bed when you're not around to observe it. The use of color in this film, however, gives it a strong internal-space feeling, or to be more precise, the Quay brothers literally take us into a woman's body and send hands feeling all over her.Essayists of haptic criticism state that a strong way to create a sense of touch from glance in film is to play with focus, and the Quays' do that a lot in most of their films. Saturating that dim slight-focus with flesh-tone sunsets makes it seem even more organic. I disagree that this area looks like something out of a Grimms fairytale... the Grimms like blood and forests, not organics and menstruation.--PolarisDiB