Institute Benjamenta or This Dream People Call Human Life

Institute Benjamenta is the first feature film by the twins Stephen and Timothy Quay, after a series of animation films that was highly regarded by connoisseurs. Animation plays a secondary role in their film version of Robert Walser’s Swiss novel Jakob von Gunten (1909) about the surreal events in a training institute for servants. With great patience, love and a manic eye for detail, the Quay Brothers bring to life objects including in this case actors such as Mark Rylance, Alice Krige, Fassbinder veteran Gottfried John and the Dutch resident Daniel Smith (Die zweite Heimat). The Quays give their actors just as much love and attention as they do the puppets in their short films and more than actors in many traditional feature films. Institute Benjamenta is a milestone in the synthesis of diverse film genres: animation, literary-based feature and experimental films.