Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (Part 1)

The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes does have more than a passing resemblance to Jan Svenkmajer's dystopian visions of a world gone mechanical and soulless, but the Brothers Quay have their own style that owes as much to Tarkovsky and David Lynch. If Terry Gilliam has expressed an enthusiasm for their work, his cinematography could do with a little more of their imaginative manipulation of colour and tone: they evoke a sinister, brooding atmosphere less by unearthing dark themes than by interfering with the very fabric of the film.

The plot alludes to early fairy-tales and fantasies - most notably Copelia, with its insane doctor and beautiful female victim - but twists them through a thoroughly contemporary alienation. The automatons, who provide the titular piano tuner with enough work to be dragged into the doctor's insanity, are musical monsters, created by the malevolent Dr Droz as part of his vaguely motivated campaign to "punish" a world that has ignored his music.

A comparison to Angela Carter's way with the fairy-tale from The Guardian is telling: but where Carter often rescues her heroines from the patriarchy, the brothers capture their antagonists in a mechanical hell of repressed sensuality and unexpressed desire. And while the story is reasonably coherent - Droz is the baddie, Malvina the singer is the female victim and Felisberto, the piano tuner, a failed hero - the stop motion interludes, the half whispered dialogue and the heavy, hot atmosphere transform the content into a more elusive allegory.

Felisberto is the double of Malvina's fiancé. Malvina is declared dead but rises to sing again. Droz's former lover spies on the developing romance between Felisberto and Malvina, trying to seduce the piano tuner while he becomes more entangled in Droz's machinery.

The trompe l'oeil effects, especially in the scenes of Droz's asylum, make it clear that Piano Tuner is not interested in the documentary realism of film. The conversations between Droz and his former lover are freighted with meaning that disappears between dark erotic displays. 

And death comes, only not to be death but a static preservation...