Street of Crocodiles

United Kingdom, 1986

Animation, Short, Avant-Garde

Synopsis

A museum keeper spits into the eyepiece of an ancient peep-show and sets the musty machine going. Inside, the puppets partake of a series of bizarre rituals amongst the dirt and the grime.

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Street of Crocodiles Directed by Stephen Quay, Timothy Quay

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Awards & Festivals

Cannes Film Festival

1986

Locarno International Film Festival

1998

Melbourne International Film Festival

2002

Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival

1986 | Winner: Best Short Film (Caixa de Catalunya)

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Cast & Crew

Articles from the Notebook

The Forgotten: "L'Ange" (1983)

No summary is really possible of Patrick Bokanowski's extraordinary "L'ange".

Movie Poster of the Week: “Hunger” and the Quay Brothers’ Favorite Polish Posters

A look at the influence of Polish movie posters on the work of the renowned twin animators the Quay Brothers.

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What are people saying?

Kenneth Gentry's rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
Kenneth Gentry

Brilliant: direction, production, visual and sound design, animation, cinematography, and editing. After nearly 20 years it's still a wonder to behold, and thankfully, no CGI!
November 29, 2015 01:41
- 4
- 0
Dr Rage's rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
Dr Rage

My first introduction to the Quay Brothers, it opened up a whole new perspective on what animation could be, mesmerizing.
October 13, 2015 19:41
- 2
- 0
Michael Zyx MH Claes's rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
Michael Zyx MH Claes

DEJA VU, please MUBI BRING US NEW MUBIES A Channel Four production, Victorian version of of a Dali - surrealistic short animated puppets film. Good quality but the inspiration is weak & the "experimental" style music is dull. Anything except thrilling.
February 21, 2017 07:46
- 1
- 0
EdieEmm's rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
EdieEmm

Inside a mechanical peepshow, a gaunt marionette is cut loose. What freedom, in this derelict district of rusted cogs & reified technologies, where life exists only in its most grotesque forms, & every perversion is marketed? The camera slides like a factory machine on tracks. Violins screech harsh & mocking dissonance. Gaunt Puppet surveys the degradation of his world in morbid fascination & existential horror. 4.5
January 23, 2016 03:10
- 2
- 1
Wee Hunk's rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
Wee Hunk

It's staggering even trying to contemplate the amount of effort that went into making this. It's so incredibly detailed and inventive. I think it might be a little too long. More is not necessarily better.
November 27, 2015 20:16
- 5
- 0
Samuel T.'s rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
Samuel T.

I feel like Schulz's masterpiece is merely a hymn of a starting point for this. Doesn't matter. Both are surreal wells of hidden desires and madness, personifications in tow, spawned by a ripped and, here, literally a re-sewn historical derivation. I see these guys payed homage to Svankmajer; technically, this is next-level. Insanely beautiful. I will dream of that tailor for a long time. I secretly want that tailor.
November 25, 2015 12:27
- 3
- 1
msmichel's rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
msmichel

A masterful example of stop motion animation as strange and mystifying now as it was in the eighties. The plot may be a cypher but its' Kafkaesque nightmare is universal.
February 11, 2016 00:54
- 2
- 0
Stefan Drees's rating of the film Street of Crocodiles
Stefan Drees

An astonishing short film with a lot of fanciful visual ideas and a very good music/sound montage. It's worth watching more than once to get all the beautifully crafted details.
November 24, 2015 22:40
- 3
- 0