THE STORY – A ghostly train journey on a forgotten branch line transports a son, Jozef, visiting his dying Father in a remote Galician Sanatorium. Upon arrival Jozef finds the Sanatorium entirely moribund and run by a dubious Doctor Gotard who tells him that his father’s death, the death that has struck him in his country has not yet occurred, and that here they are always late by a certain interval of time of which the length cannot be defined. Jozef will come to realize that the Sanatorium is a floating world halfway between sleep and wakefulness and that time and events cannot be measured in any tangible form.
THE CAST – Tadeusz Janiszewski, Wioletta Kopańska & Andrzej Kłak
THE TEAM – Quay brothers (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 76 Minutes
Polish author Bruno Schulz began his humble literary career as a short-story writer. He was best known for his self-reflexive writing, as aspects of his Jewishness and cultural heritage appear in his oeuvre. After publishing his short story collection entitled “The Cinnamon Shops,” Schulz started writing one of his most well-renowned publications. 1937, he completed “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass.” In the novel, Schulz intertwines different short stories centered around the Jewish quarter of Drohobycz. The work derives from Schulz’s childhood and turbulent memories. Unfortunately, the expansion of his oeuvre was short-lived. In 1942, Schulz was killed by a vengeful, antisemitic Gestapo officer.
However, Schulz’s writing would live past the reign of the Nazi regime. In 1973, Polish surrealist Wojciech Jerzy Has adapted Schulz’s meditative “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass” into feature form. Retitled “The Hourglass Sanatorium,” the film brought international attention to Schulz’s writing after premiering and winning the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. However, British brothers Stephen and Timothy Quay were unimpressed with Jerzy Has’ interpretation of the original text. The brothers love literature, as they previously re-interpreted works from Franz Kafka, Robert Walser, and Michel de Ghelderode. Their most critically applauded work is “Streets of Crocodiles” (1986) — a 21-minute adaptation of a minor Schulz short story. Over 19 years, the brothers would gradually produce their reinvention of the hotly debated novel.
Unlike Jerzy Has, the Quays kept the published text’s original title. Between commissioned work, personal projects, and tiresome funding applications, the brothers spent over 3,500 days animating the piece. Borrowing mainly from themes and motifs explored in the original text, the Quay brothers worked tirelessly on their ambitious adaptation.
Combining live-action, stop-motion, puppets, and other forms of in-camera trickery, the Quays’ insatiable mixed-media palette recalls the gothic texture of their earlier works. Ingenuity is at the forefront of their animation disciplines, as their free-flowing visuals follow an uncompromising structure. In their adaptation, the Quays hypnotize their spectatorship through literal and narrative repetition. The unwinding overtonal pastiche deliriously lulls the viewer into an eerie nightmare. Their grotesque style recalls the animation and puppet work of Jan Švankmajer, Chris Lavis, and Maciek Szczerbowski.
Unfortunately, the brothers’ reliance on Schulz’s original text is the root of the creative downfall. The Quays are indecisive about their chronology, and the film idles between narrative and avant-garde. While the Quays successfully achieve a distinct melancholy tone that remixes the iconography of Schulz’s writing, their insistence on literary accuracy deters their cryptic direction. The mere semblance of narrative conflicts with their directorial pastiche. The Polish dialogue regresses the impact of the restless images. When the liminality of the animation accomplishes the majority of the thematic heavy lifting, the spoken word evolves into an obvious safety net for the brothers’ narrative ambitions. Images should speak louder than words, but the Quays are restricted by their passionate literary obsessions.
“Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass” is an arduous retelling of a challenging tale. The labyrinthine execution is more a reaffirmation of the Quays’ signature style than a creative reinvention. Instead of relishing in the mystery and suffocating ambiance of the titular Sanatorium, the Quays impatiently redirect the viewer in their adaptation of the disorienting text. The creative decision-making diminishes the vulnerability backing the protagonist’s perspective. The Quays haphazardly lessen the impact of their cinematic abstractions by constantly re-arranging different characters and locations that spontaneously intersect within the loose narrative. As a work of avant-garde animation, The Quay brothers’ episodic feature rests in the disappointing shadow of Schulz’s memorable oeuvre. The film is a circuitous dud at best.
