Brothers grim

NEW YORK -- If the Brothers Grimm were alive today and collaborating with David Lynch or Jean-Pierre Jeunet in some eldritch corner of Eastern Europe, they might very well conjure the dreamlike, fairy-tale realm of London-based filmmakers Stephen and Timothy Quay.

Masters of stop-motion animation in the vein of Jan Svankmajer ("Lunacy ") and Walerian Borowczyk, the Brothers Quay (who are 58-year-old identical twins from Philadelphia) have previously directed one feature, "Institute Benjamenta ," in addition to numerous shorts, like their enchanting 1986 allegory "Street of Crocodiles ," which was nominated for the Palme d'Or at Cannes.

Despite the critical accolades, however, their new live-action fable, "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes ," was dead in the water for 10 years until "Brazil" director Terry Gilliam signed on as executive producer.

"We went to [Britain's] Channel 4 with this project," says Stephen, who like his brother has chiseled features and a rakish mane of sandy-brown hair, "and they made a lot of stipulations about accessibility." Since their idea was partly inspired by Jules Verne's tale "The Carpathian Castle ," the Quays decided to pitch it as "poetic science fiction." But in the end, despite repeated rewrites, no one would fund the production until Gilliam threw his weight behind the project in 2004.

Set on an eerie, forested island, "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes" -- which opens Thursday at the Museum of Fine Arts -- tells the story of Dr. Droz (Gottfried John), a mad genius who kidnaps gorgeous opera singer Malvina (Amira Casar) with the intention of turning the bride-to-be into a musical automaton. Assisted by Assumpta (Assumpta Serna), his succubus-like helpmate, Droz lures Felisberto (Cesar Sarachu ) to the isle, where the gaunt piano tuner begins to fine-tune the mechanisms that will, unbeknownst to him, eventually imprison her.

Watching this elliptically structured fantasy, which won a special mention for "visual atmosphere" at the 2005 Locarno International Film Festival , one gets the sense of "living in someone else's imagination," as a dazed Filisberto intones at one point. But the Quays -- who scripted, directed, and designed special effects for "Piano Tuner" -- say evoking that kind of intersubjective consciousness isn't their goal.

"We tend to hold the mirrors out," says Stephen, "toward life, toward a kind of theoretical beyond."

Indeed, part of the allure of "Piano Tuner" is its unearthly ambiance, courtesy of Nic Knowland's high-definition digital cinematography. But the Quays also wanted to push harder at the edges of narrative filmmaking, introducing a live-action realm "contaminated" with Droz's tableaux vivant, where one could not always tell whether what's being glimpsed is actual or animated, mechanized or supernatural.

"You'll get lost, you'll go into a deep forest and get disoriented," says Timothy, "but ultimately, I guess you have to feel your way through it without knowing exactly where you're going. There's no handrails."

Editing with this in mind brought the film closer to music, an abiding reference for the Quays, who say they prize visual rhythms more than "dramaturgical laws." But their backers did not allow for too much unchecked creative freedom. And it wasn't until the final edit, Stephen says, that those tensions became most apparent.

"Suddenly, they all came out of the woodwork with a different idea of what they thought the film was about. They would make a point of saying 'This, we don't understand.' It became a mess."

For the Quays, who studied illustration at London's Royal College of Art , the initial leap from animation to live action a decade earlier was not nearly so daunting.

"We were reading Robert Walser at the time," explains Timothy, referring to the mentally ill Swiss author whose 1909 novel "Jakob Von Gunten " inspired "Institute Benjamenta," their maiden feature. "We thought, 'Yes, if we kept it chamber-like, under control, we could do it. We were just beginning to do decors for theater and opera, and I think that acquainted us with leaving the studio and going to see our puppet sets blown up to 25 times, populated by a chorus of 80 singers. That gave us a gentle confidence that we could fill them with real people."

Long time associate Keith Griffiths, who has worked with the Quays since the '70s, was the first to approach them with the idea of doing a live-action film. In 1995, he produced "Benjamenta," a Kafkaesque story of fate and submission set at an otherworldly boarding school for house servants.

"I think they have a unique way of looking at the material they are working with," says Griffiths, speaking by telephone from London. "For them, it has to be something [with] which they're very familiar, that in a way encompasses their own creative universe. At the same time, as animators, they approach [film] in a very physical way -- they almost feel they have to touch and be close to all the models or characters."

That tactile approach clearly owes something to their affinity for marionette theater, which they discovered as students touring the Eastern bloc. In addition, the Quays' films express an almost fetishistic interest in antiquated objects, such as doll heads, flywheels, buttons, forks, and pieces of wire and string. Certain animated sequences in "Piano Tuner," as well as hallucinatory shorts like "The Epic of Gilgamesh," can look at moments as though a Joseph Cornell box had suddenly burst to life.

"Our mother took us to flea markets," explains Timothy. "We were always drawn towards texture, towards the organic." Besides, Stephen adds, "It's in our side of the family: There are cabinetmakers, there were tailors on one side. And I think wood, the organic, is really crucial -- found objects, dispossessed objects. History is something they've brushed up against. And for us it's wanting to release that side of their history, if possible."

Griffiths, however, thinks the "Polish" aspect, as he puts it, of Brothers Quay films has been overemphasized: "The fact is, they deal with a fantastic and mythic world which actually travels across cultures."

Certainly, their dark fairy tales resonate on a deeper level than, say, more mainstream gothic works such as Tim Burton's kid-friendly "Corpse Bride ." "Even in the animation films," admits Stephen, "there's a kind of fated quality -- to be unhappy or to be caught in some kind of elliptical loop or something." He laughs. "We should correct that, shouldn't we?"

While their ominous milieu provides plenty of fodder for the imagination, some of the Quays' mystique is also the byproduct of a simple biological oddity -- their twinness. And at this point, the brothers acknowledge, they really are "psychologically and metaphorically" joined at the hip.

"I think the kind of work that we do is very demanding," says Timothy, referring to the long hours they spend together at their London atelier, Koninck Studios. "Most animators tell us how they envy our duality. We don't have storyboards, we have it here [points to his head], between us."

Over the years, the Quays have supported themselves with special commissions and, less frequently of late, commercial spots for clients such as Nikon and Coca-Cola . Their animation work on Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer " video opened doors for them in the late '80s and certainly helped them find funding for "Benjamenta." But since then, they say, it's been harder to get features made, as evidenced by the 10-year gestation of "Piano Tuner." In the absence of opportunities, nevertheless, spring the aberrant blooms of creativity that the Quays are known for nurturing.

"We don't have grand schemes," says Timothy, musing about the future. "It's better that we be pushed into a corner. Our idea is to be pushed further and further into a corner where another kind of infinity opens up."

Damon Smith can be reached at damon.g.smith@gmail.com.