Roy Andersson, About Endlessness, 2019
Am I the only one who doesn't like this much? Seems the reviews I see online are all uniformly glowing (take your pick, go Google) - but in choosing to truncate each of his mini-sketches before the punchline we're left (intentionally, I guess) in a void, in one of the director's typically pale, empty spaces where we're supposed to join the dots and make sense of it all. What made Songs from the Second Floor and You, The Living so delightful was the sense of humour, which is almost entirely absent here: some of the sketches are decidedly grim (the condemned man about to be shot, the crucifixion scene, the Hitler bunker..), and the strange voiceover commentary (spoken by the woman who's floating above the ruined city in a Chagall-like montage?) isn't likely to raise much of a smile either. Maybe that's the point, as I say - if it's a reflection of the director's own mindset I can only assume Roy is a thoroughly miserable chap. Or maybe it's a Swedish thing (is it, Henrik?). Whatever, stylistically Andersson's got it down to a tee: those beautifully-framed tableaux (no close ups - almost impossible to read any facial emotion at all), eternally grey skies, grey costumes (I've always thought he was inspired on all this by Tati's Play Time, even if it didn't feature in his list of ten favourite films https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Andersson ). You could freeze frame just about anywhere and be able to ID it at once as Roy Andersson, which I suppose is a sign of genuine originality. That said, I can't see myself returning to this one in the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, would love to know what you make of it, Henrik old chum
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