X
  • 2006
  • Not Rated
  • Zeitgeist Films
  • 1 h 39 m
  • 2006
  • Not Rated
  • Zeitgeist Films
  • 1 h 39 m

Summary The breathtakingly beautiful and long-awaited second feature from the Brothers Quay. On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is mysteriously killed and abducted by a malevolent Dr. Droz. Felisberto, an innocent piano tuner, is summoned to Droz's secluded villa to service his strange musical automatons. Little by lit...

Directed By: Weiser Quay

Written By: Alan Passes

  • 2006
  • Not Rated
  • Zeitgeist Films
  • 1 h 39 m
  • 2006
  • Not Rated
  • Zeitgeist Films
  • 1 h 39 m

The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes

Metascore Generally Favorable Based on 14 Critic Reviews
66
User Score Available after 4 ratings
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My Score
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Summary The breathtakingly beautiful and long-awaited second feature from the Brothers Quay. On the eve of her wedding, the beautiful opera singer Malvina is mysteriously killed and abducted by a malevolent Dr. Droz. Felisberto, an innocent piano tuner, is summoned to Droz's secluded villa to service his strange musical automatons. Little by lit...

Directed By: Weiser Quay

Written By: Alan Passes

Top Cast

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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 14 Critic Reviews
66
64% Positive
9 Reviews
36% Mixed
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews

Critic Reviews

 View All
Metascore
Generally Favorable Based on 14 Critic Reviews
66
64% Positive
9 Reviews
36% Mixed
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews

  • All Reviews
  • Positive Reviews
  • Mixed Reviews
  • Negative Reviews
100
Those who can surrender to the Quays' poetic logic will find The Piano Tuner to be nothing short of a masterpiece.
FULL REVIEW
80
The film is about vanity and pride, and the caging of beauty. Its elaborate fabrication has an intoxicating quality that captures the imagination like all good horror stories.
By Ray Bennett FULL REVIEW
75
Seething with suggestions of perverse pleasures and inchoate horror, this dark fairy tale won't win the Pennsylvania-born, London-based Quay brothers any new fans -- it plays to the converted, and the converted know who they are.
By Maitland McDonagh FULL REVIEW
70
Impresses as a visually exquisite, rigorously intellectual but dauntingly obscurantist fable about automatons, opera singers and herniated desire that will appeal exclusively to arthouse auds with rarefied tastes.
FULL REVIEW
58
The result is a cast of characters who are little better than automatons themselves. This wouldn't be a problem if the rest of the film were as captivating as it was surely meant to be. Instead, the Quays work overtime to make both their story line and images as obscure as possible.
By Marc Mohan FULL REVIEW
50
With the film's hypnotic emphasis on artistry and architecture, most viewers will probably get their satisfaction from the striking visual elements, particularly the stop-motion animation.
By Elizabeth Weitzman FULL REVIEW
40
By the end of the 99 minute running time, there is a terrible sense of been-there/done-that. And for artists of the Quays' caliber, that is a huge mistake.
By Phil Hall FULL REVIEW

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Details

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Production Company ARTE, Arte France Cinéma, Koninck Studios, Lumen Films, Mediopolis Film- und Fernsehproduktion, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF)
Release Date Nov 17, 2006
Duration 1 h 39 m
Rating Not Rated
Genres
Website http://www.quay-piano.jp/
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Awards

Locarno International Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
Chlotrudis Awards
• 1 Nomination

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