Still, the little tale of a puppet somnambulist appealed to my gothic sensibilities, and I felt the work of the Quays would become highly regarded when presented under other circumstances. The team has gone on to create a string of shorts over the years, and more recently a feature. Their grim and surreal visions have inspired Tim Burton, video director Fred Stuhr, and a host of others. The recent hit film The Cell is full of Quay imagery, even down to the camera moves in certain sequences. Heavily influenced by the folk tales told in the European neighborhood of Philadelphia they grew up in, the Quays exploit the more disturbing aspects of dolls and puppets.
Common objects seem to rot before their lens.
Broken tennis rackets become the most sinister of instruments. There is no concern for narrative structure, as the brothers have more artistic pretensions. You could roll any of their films in a loop and hang it on a wall. After some preliminaries, a boy doll visits a learned creature and has the contents of his head examined, then assists in a series of experiments. A tribute to the great Czech animator of the early days of cinema.