Film Forum

The first feature in 20 years by animation masters The Quay Brothers is inspired by stories by Polish author Bruno Schulz (Street of Crocodiles). In a mixture of live action and breathtakingly intricate stop-motion puppetry, the Quays follow the journey of Josef, who arrives at a labyrinthine sanatorium in search of his dying father. Told in seven chapters corresponding with seven prophetic, mystical viewing lenses, the film bends objects, time, and dimensions as Josef navigates the realm between dreams and reality.

Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film and The Ashes and Diamonds Fund for Eastern European Film 

2024     76 MIN.     UK / POLAND / GERMANY     KIMSTIM
IN POLISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Reviews

“A film of sensations and mystery that feels like it's wafting toward us from another century, like much of the Quays' work, channeling uncanny realms of Central European puppetry... [The film] lingers in the mind as a series of haunting images: a train ribboning across a mountain, a hat falling in slow-motion, a six-armed man.”
– Nicolas Rapold, The New York Times

“[A] surreal stop-motion fantasia…[a] dark, densely nested fairytale of life, death and what comes in between…with entirely its own collapsing, free-form model of storytelling.”
– Guy Lodge, Variety

“A transporting, ghostly affair. Wonderfully strange and beguiling. An enchanting fantasia. The Quay Brothers’ trademark stop-motion animation is as haunting as ever.”
– Tim Grierson, Screen