Songs From The Second Floor

A surreal masterpiece by Swedish director Roy Andersson, this is a film that should be seen in the cinema. It loses some of its power on my little tv. All the images are carefully composed in muted colours and filmed with a static camera. Each scene is one long take, looking like a painting that has come to life. The dialogue is anti arty, though, if that's a word, very much normal, every day talk.

What's the film about? Well, it came out in 2000 and is pretty much a millennium film. The world is going to hell, there's chaos everywhere, and we follow a group of people who try to do the best they can with the situation. Among them is the businessman whose furniture store burned down and his two sons, one a taxi driver, the other a poet in a mental institution. At the same time, the politicians decide to sacrifize the life of a little girl. Did I mention that it's also funny, in a Scandinavian, long dark winters kind of way?

Scenes from the film can be found on youtube, among them the amazing six minutes long one take ending, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s-e799o37w