Film

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life 1995

Directed by Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay

  • Drama, Mystery
  • 105 min

Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?

DramaMysteryservantsurrealismschool lifeinstitutioncorrectional institutionservant heiress relationship
Heads up
  • Bleak ending

Log it

Sign in to log this.

Character

Not read yet. Character is read in the background after the first visit.

Who loves it, who doesn't

No profiled raters yet.

Ask the title

A yes-or-no question, answered from what people wrote here, on TMDB and on Wikipedia. Never made up.

YesNoUnclear