Staff Pick: Institute Benjamenta (35mm)

or
This Dream People Call Human Life

For whatever it’s worth, Terry Gilliam’s take on Carl’s staff pick goes a little something like:
“The most visually beautiful and hauntingly humorous film I have seen in the last 300 years!“

A young man enters the oppressive environment of a school for servants. The all-male student body submits to strange rituals and choreographed lessons in subservience designed to reduce them to “absolute zero.” Gradually, the young man’s attraction to the headmistress and his efforts to discover the secret history of the institution threaten the order of things, triggering destructive passions that lead to death and a dreamlike escape.

Directed by the Brothers Quay. Screenplay by Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay, Alan Passes and Robert Walser. Drawn from the novella “Jakob Von Gunten” and other texts of Robert Walser. With Mark Rylance, Alice Krige, Gottfried John, Daniel Smith, Joseph Alessi, and Jonathan Stone.

Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass premieres at Venice Film Festival