Phantom Museums: The Short Films of the Quay Brothers (DVD)

Since the late 1970s, identical twins Stephen and Timothy Quay have made a unique contribution to animation in general and the puppet film in particular. Filtering arcane visual, literary, musical, cinematic and philosophical influences through their own utterly distinctive sensibility, each Quay film rivets the attention through hypnotic control of décor, music and movement, evoking half-remembered dreams and long-suppressed childhood memories, fascinating and deeply unsettling in turn.

This 2007 two-disc set contains thirteen of their classic short films in restored and remastered editions (personally supervised by the Quays), with a collection of “footnotes” including new audio commentaries, extensive interviews, alternative versions, unrealized pilot projects and more, presented in beautiful slipcase packaging—with a gorgeously illustrated, 24-page booklet that includes an extensive Quay Brothers Dictionary and an essay by film critic Michael Atkinson.