Recencies van critici

Strangely enough, even though none of the three films is very cheerful, Andersson's trilogy triggered optimism in my heart and in my mind. What exactly causes that, I don't know. But I do know that the Swedish director has created a very effective trilogy about us, the living, hearing songs from the second floor all the while we sit on a bench reflecting on existence.

Songs from the Second Floor's strongest aspect is its extraordinarily precise mise-en-scène, a tribute to Roy Andersson's perfectionism and sense of comic (and tragic) timing. And while the film bears the mark of a number of cinematic influences (the traffic jam in Fellini's 8 1/2, the absurdity of Monty Python, the similarly overpowering architecture in Gilliam's Brazil), Andersson's film offers a distinctive view of modern unease with restrained sympathy.

The most highly acclaimed Swedish art film in recent memory, Roy Andersson's supremely crafted, millennium-pegged Songs From the Second Floor harks back to the glory days of Scando-spiritual anguish, but with a difference. This is slapstick Ingmar Bergman—wacky yet depressing, like the performance of onetime Bergman stalwart Max Von Sydow in Minority Report.

For the first 20 minutes or so this slice of Nordic surrealism - a blend of millennial metaphorical allegory and bizarre black comedy - looks set to become some sort of hilarious masterpiece, before the novelty begins to wear off and the lack of a strong narrative thread takes its toll. That said, its very loosely connected vignettes... are visually striking, frequently fertile in their dark, deadpan inventiveness, and now and then truly evocative of apocalyptic insanity.