Screen Picks

The Films of the Brothers Quay and The Jewish Film Festival.

by Sam Adams

The Films of the Brothers Quay (Thu., Nov. 2, 7 p.m., $5-$7, International House, 3701 Chestnut St.) The films of Stephen and Timothy Quay are invariably referred to as "dreamlike," but not always with a full account of what the word means. Like dreams, they can be beautiful, ugly, frightening, transfixing, mystifying and obtuse. And like dreams, if they go on too long, they make you wish you could wake up. The Norristown natives, who have lived in England for the past two decades, continue to struggle with the transition to feature-length filmmaking, in large part because the glacial pace of producing their trademark stop-motion animation necessitates the addition of superfluous live-action elements.

Street of Crocodiles

The four short films that comprise this program, however, represent the Quays at their undiluted and unparalleled best. Street of Crocodiles and The Epic of Gilgamesh, or This Unnameable Little Broom, regularly head lists of the Quays' finest achievements, and the more recent In Absentia and The Phantom Museum use filters and distorting lenses to heighten the dislocation. The latter is particularly interesting as it marks the Quays' transition to shooting on HD, a shift that, they told me in March, was necessitated by financial reasons but which they also hope will free them from the meddlesome restrictions of finding finance in the dwindling European market.

Making their first hometown appearance in many years, the Quays (who are much less frightening in person than their films might suggest) will follow the screening with a panel discussion.

Misc. Picks: The Jewish Film Festival kicks off at the Gershman Y with the documentary The Upside of Memory (Sat., 8 p.m.), in which former chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Museum Chris Lerman returns to Poland with his family, and continues with Family Law (Sun., 2 p.m.; Mon., 7 p.m.), a family drama by Argentina's Daniel Burman (Lost Embrace). Both filmmakers will present their work in person. The County and Ambler theaters screen Carol Reed's The Fallen Idol (Nov. 6 and 9). Turner Classic Movies premieres Peter Bogdanovich's revamped and expanded version of his lost documentary Directed by John Ford (Tue., 8 p.m.).

(sam@citypaper.net)