Die Quay-Brüder Timothy and Stephen sind eher für ihre Animationsfilme bekannt. 1995 jedoch drehten sie mit “Institut Benjamenta oder Dieser Traum, den man menschliches Leben nennt / Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life” [GB / J / BRD 1995] ihren ersten Live-Action-Film nach einer Novelle von Robert Walser. Dieser Film soll am 9. November 2009 vom British Film Institute (BFI) auf DVD und Blu-ray erscheinen.

A young man enrols at a dilapidated boarding school for trainee servants, only to discover that all the lessons being taught are exactly the same! Over time, he becomes entangled in the strange lives of the students and headmasters alike.
British animators The Brothers Quay turn their hand to live-action for the first time, resulting in this curiously fascinating film.

Erste Infos zu den Discs sind im Criterion-Forum aufgetaucht:

It’s too early to go into fine detail about extras etc. (though there should be plenty on that score), but this is shaping up to be a very impressive release – and should be several leagues ahead of the old Kino DVD for transfer quality alone.

That was letterboxed NTSC, and sourced from a 35mm positive print (so at least four generations away from the negative), whereas this brand new HD transfer came from the original finegrain (so just one stage removed from the neg), and the telecine and grading were supervised and approved by the Quays and cinematographer Nic Knowland.

In other words, not only will the Blu-ray potentially offer up to eight times as much detail as the Kino disc, it’ll be about as close to definitive as is conceivable with current domestic technology.

The booklet’s still in the very early stages of preparation, but I can confirm that a German-speaking Walser and Quay expert has been brought on board. I’m probably going to be writing something for it myself, but I doubt it’ll be as conceptually original as the dictionary – that specifically took advantage of the fact that BFI Screenonline was going to be publishing more conventional programme notes on each film (i.e. the kind of thing that would normally go in the booklet), freeing up the space for something more experimental. But if inspiration strikes, you never know…