gist: i am honestly lost for words. nothing can be said enough to summarize this movie, yet on the other hand, a one-sentence description of any scene may be too much. this is one of those films best viewed with virgin eyes.
reaction: holymotherfuckinshitballs. what did i just watch? roy andersson's sånger från andra våningen (or songs from the second floor, to the non-swedish readers) is definitely one of the weirdest films i have ever seen. and i love every odd frame of it. it starts with a guy talking to another guy who is inside a tanning bed and its just gets weirder and weirder from there. all scenes are shot static (except for one, if i remember correctly) framed in a way that the main focus is on the particular characters central to the sequence at hand but with room for extras and events in the background or on the sides to memontarily capture your attention. there is one where in there's a long road in the background and as the scene progresses, you realize that there are people who have been actually walking along that road beginning from horizon cut-off at the very start of the scene towards character situated at the sequence focal point. weird, eh? but something even weirder happens right after. yes, i am a junkie getting ultra high on weirness overdose.
funny is the other simple word i can associate with this complex peculiarity. everything is done seriously and nearly every scene is glum, but there'll be lines of dialogue, actions and little things that made me laugh, kind of like the way you laugh when you're outside and you see something bad happen to someone and you're not supposed to laugh but you cant help it (schadenfreude). it's exactly that. not corny or forced or inserted for a longer run time. this is a level of funny no pinoy slapstick comedy movie could ever attain. and beyond the absurdist comedy is the profound way the scenes meld together. there's a scene that didn't seem to make any sense and then later on, it a connecting scene reveals that the previous one was actually a rehearsal. mental drop kick!
this movie is proof that creativity has no bounds. you can always do something new and different. only people who arent born creative, who have no self-developed vision would say otherwise and insist imitation. i dont know who this roy andersson guy is but he just blipped in my directorial radar. he's on an entirely different plateau, a place i wanna stand on the precipice of and jump off one day.
good: the weirdness, the funniness, the progression of scenes
bad: lack of backstories
ugly: lasse's wife. half-naked. ugh.
verdict: 10 jesus-swinging-on-one-nail crucifixes
thongs from the second drawer.
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