World of Glory

Roy Andersson’s WORLD OF GLORY is a classic, recognised by the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival to be one of history’s most important short films, and included in a top-ten list together with such films as the Lumiere Brothers’ LA BATAILLE DE BOULES DE NEIGE and Luis Bunuel’s UN CHIEN ANDALOU. The film is unique and shows, in a series of tableaus, a man in various frozen situations. He’s the product of a stiff and reserved Sweden, living politely while feeling very miserable somewhere behind the painfully correct facade. The film’s Swedish title, Härlig är Jorden (literally, ‘Lovely is the earth’), which comes from a Swedish hymn of the same name, stands in sharp contrast to the cold and lifeless mood of the scenes.
Roy Andersson is famous for the individuality of his films and the singular style of his work. After a 30 year break he completed his third feature, SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR, which won the Jury prize at Cannes in 2000 and had considerable international success. Andersson’s latest feature, DU LEVANDE (We The Living), was completed in 2007.
“The opening scene of World of Glory is a reconstruction of events during the Second World War. The term ‘ethnic cleansings’ did not exist then, it was called the ‘final solution’. Human beings were put to death by, among other methods, gassing in diesel-driven, closed vans. The gas from the motor was piped into the storage compartment. These vans were the forerunners of the gas chamber.
These events, this conduct, these rationally worked out extermination methods, this coldness and insensitivity towards other people’s suffering are for me the total embodiment of evil. How shall we handle this knowledge of what humanity is capable of?”