Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
(Sånger från andra våningen)
Country: SV/FR/DK/NOR/GER
Technical: col 99m
Director: Roy Andersson
Cast: Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson
Synopsis:
A city grinds to a halt, work no longer proves a viable path to happiness, and ghosts of the past haunt a godless society.
Review:
As grim as it sounds, this visually arresting film deliberately defuses any energy in its images by eschewing camera movement and cut-ins so that each scene becomes a static tableau rather than a sequence; and the removal of establishing shots produces some disorienting juxtapositions. While lines of dialogue are repeated mantra-like, as if to hammer a message home, the lack of redemption in the story if anything makes the overall meaning obscure: no one can be this pessimistic, one instinctively feels.
(Sånger från andra våningen)
Country: SV/FR/DK/NOR/GER
Technical: col 99m
Director: Roy Andersson
Cast: Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson
Synopsis:
A city grinds to a halt, work no longer proves a viable path to happiness, and ghosts of the past haunt a godless society.
Review:
As grim as it sounds, this visually arresting film deliberately defuses any energy in its images by eschewing camera movement and cut-ins so that each scene becomes a static tableau rather than a sequence; and the removal of establishing shots produces some disorienting juxtapositions. While lines of dialogue are repeated mantra-like, as if to hammer a message home, the lack of redemption in the story if anything makes the overall meaning obscure: no one can be this pessimistic, one instinctively feels.
(Sånger från andra våningen)
Country: SV/FR/DK/NOR/GER
Technical: col 99m
Director: Roy Andersson
Cast: Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson
Synopsis:
A city grinds to a halt, work no longer proves a viable path to happiness, and ghosts of the past haunt a godless society.
Review:
As grim as it sounds, this visually arresting film deliberately defuses any energy in its images by eschewing camera movement and cut-ins so that each scene becomes a static tableau rather than a sequence; and the removal of establishing shots produces some disorienting juxtapositions. While lines of dialogue are repeated mantra-like, as if to hammer a message home, the lack of redemption in the story if anything makes the overall meaning obscure: no one can be this pessimistic, one instinctively feels.