Review

Masters of puppet animation, the Quay Brothers have crafted a bizarre dreamlike realm by bringing the smallest entities to life. The 21st JEONJU IFF honored their work through Special Focus, featuring 25 shorts and features, including the Cannes selection Street of Crocodiles, alongside a display of their "Dormitorium," which served as the set for their animations, providing insight into their unique artistic world. Their latest film, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, freely adapts Polish writer Bruno Schulz’s novel of the same title, showcasing their distinctive lighting techniques and mysteriously enchanting scenery. The story follows a son who arrives at a sanatorium with doubts about his father’s possible death and experiences a sensation of time being suspended just before an inevitable moment of fate. One of the characters’ poetic observation that "Everything that happens here happens only once and is irrevocable" perfectly captures the singular nature of the Quay Brothers' filmmaking. (Sung MOON)

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