The first feature length live action film from The Quay Brothers is named after the titular institute where the film takes place. Located somewhere in Europe (the film hints that it might be Germany), this decaying and rundown old building is home to a school that trains men to work as butlers for a variety of well to do clients. A man named Jakob von Gunten (Mark Rylance) enrolls in the school, feeling that he would make a good servant for someone some day, and soon joins the small class of students studying at the school.

The school is run by Herr Benjamenta (Gottfried John) and his sister, Lisa (Alice Krige), a pair of disciplinarians who teach the students using some ritualistic and very unorthodox measures. As Jakob acclimates to his new life, Lisa begins to show an unusual attraction to him while Herr Benjamenta starts to seem more and more unhinged, all while Jakob begins discovering the truth about the school's unusual past and how it all ties in with what he's going through.

Beautifully shot in black and white with all manner of filters and visual trickery employed,Institute Benjamenta is a gorgeous film to watch. The story is odd and at times meandering but fans of surrealism should appreciate what The Quay Brothers have accomplished here. The performances are quirky enough that the characters stand out and the script is tense enough in spots that it will hold your interest but really, more than anything else, it's the visuals that make this strange little film as interesting as it is.

Much of the film plays out as a macabre fairy tale, what with the dark forest surrounding the lone building and the mysterious brother and sister team running the show, and like many fairy tales before they were watered down and made safe, things don't always end on a happy note. The imagery here, while not quite horror movie territory, gets very dark and eerie and there's a really strange feeling about the whole production that can get under your skin at times.

The movie also mixes up a lot of different symbolism and religious imagery resulting in a picture that is as ripe with metaphors as it is with painterly compositions. Much of what this all means and why it's included in the first place is left up to the viewer to decide and this isn't a film that spells everything out for its audience, but there is very definitely a method to the madness on display. Much of the religious symbolism is easy enough to figure out while the visual nods to early German horror films like Nosferatu and The Cabinet Of Doctor Caligari make it clear where much of the influence came for this wholly impressive film.

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Institute Benjamenta arrives on DVD from Zeitgeist in a newly restored transfer supervised by the Quay Brothers that looks quite good and was, if the BFI logo is any indicator, taken from the recent high definition transfer that the British Film Institute used for their Blu-ray release a couple of years ago. Obviously this standard definition port doesn't offer the same detail or depth as the Blu-ray did but it looks quite good given the origins of the film. Contrast is solid, detail is nice as is texture, and there are no issues with compression artifacts. Any obvious print damage is simply in keeping with the intended look of the film and isn't distracting. The 1.66.1 framing is nice and overall the image is solid.