Songs from the Second Floor

2000 black comedy

Rating: 17/20 (Jen: 12/20)

Plot: Tired pale souls wander in the solitude of a crowded purgatory.

I searched and searched for this about six years ago, finally found and watched it, and was kind of disappointed. Roy Andersson, not exactly a prolific filmmaker, has a follow-up which has just found its way onto dvd, so I thought it would be a good time to give this a second chance. I'm really glad I did because it really connected this time. There's a fragmented narrative in here--something about a corporation going out of business, a traffic jam, a guy burning down his furniture store for the insurance money, stuff that wouldn't be out of place in a Monty Python production--but the story doesn't matter. This one is all about the images, and Andersson's got the sort of eye that make a film survive entirely on images. The camera is static, moving (I think) during only one scene, and you really get the sense that you're watching a photograph filled with people and objects who decided to break the laws of photography and move around a little bit. They're photographs from incomplete dreams, stuffed with surreal imagery like multiple crucifixes, magician tricks gone wrong, scurrying rats, former generals trapped in cribs, the wandering dead, and group flagellation. The dialogue's occasionally dippy, and it'd be hard to argue with somebody who thinks the drab colors give this a monochromatically faded and depressing appearance, but there's something in every single scene that fascinates, whether it's because it cleverly connects to another scene, contains complex choreography with things or characters moving in the background, has interesting geometry and angles (lots of really long streets and hallways, sets actually constructed in a studio), or is just too bizarre to not pay attention to. One observation: the characters' interactions are so completely unnatural (I'm not sure there's one conversation with characters who are facing each other) that it's at least depressing and almost unnerving. That's one of the many aspects of this that make it not very easy and not for everybody, but it's a unique work of art with some heavy philosophy that was not only universally relevant at the beginning of the millennium but is actually even more relevant today. I look forward to seeing You, the Living, apparently the second piece of an unfinished trilogy. My favorite scene is the one in which the main character (or the closest thing to a main character this has) is introduced on a subway. It's a moment that was simultaneously beautiful and hilarious, just like all of the world's best things.