SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000), dir. Roy Anderrson
It’s the End of the World—Do They Know It? (Return to Main Page)
Traffic grinds to a halt in an unnamed Swedish city. A man survives being cut in half with a bandsaw. A building moves under its own power. Participants in elaborate costumes perform a ritual of human sacrifice.
What does it all add up to? Are these strange events the signs of a coming apocalypse? Such questions go unanswered in Roy Andersson’s beautiful, but genuinely unsettling film, “Songs from the Second Floor.” The director presents a cross-section of characters, all of whom appear tired, pale, and sick. They are connected in various ways; for example, familial bonds, as in the case of the cartoonishly-large salesman Kalle (Lars Nordh) and his two sons. But the connections go deeper than that. If the different storylines in “Songs…” have anything in common, it is the miserable existence everyone seems to be sharing. Perhaps the world hasn’t ended yet. But clearly, things are so bad that such a drastic event could only improve things.
Kalle has been driven to distraction by his own bad luck. His relationship to his wife is cold and unresponsive. Meanwhile, his two grown-up sons haven’t prospered much in the world. The oldest, Stefan (Stefan Larsson), drives a taxi and drinks too much. When we first encounter him, he is part of a gang that beats up on a hapless foreigner. Tomas (Peter Roth), the younger son, resides in a mental institution. Whenever his family visits, Kalle inevitably berates his sensitivity. Apparently, he “wrote poetry until he went nuts.”
Does insanity run in the family? Kalle, who sells furniture, decides to burn his own store down. Why does he do it? To try and dupe the insurance company. Kalle claims that his showroom, now full of ash piles, had once been occupied by priceless, high-end sofas. He rationalizes the swindle by claiming that it is human nature to buy something, then try to “sell it with an extra zero at the end.”
When the case gets stalled by the insurance company, Kalle makes ends meet by taking a job selling crucifixes. His oily boss (Tommy Johansson) hopes to capitalize on the hysteria surrounding the approaching millenium. Kalle journeys to the train station, giant cross in tow. There, a grim-looking figure begins following. It is Sven (Sture Olsson), Kalle’s former business partner, who commited suicide after having a large sum of money stolen from him.
Is the former furniture vendor seeing dead people? The movie never makes clear whether Sven is a figment of Kalle’s imagination. And what do either of them have to do with the spectre of the boy, the one who walks around with a noose tied around his neck? According to Sven, the youth is looking for his dead sister, whom he played a cruel trick on without ever having the chance to apologize. Perhaps Kalle, like the boy, is supposed to atone for his own sins. He was the one who stole from Sven. Unfortunately, the ghost has no surviving relatives. Even the dead man tacitly agrees that paying back the debt would be very difficult.
While Kalle tries to deal with his very unique dilemna, Andersson cuts to other characters. They include a corporate manager named Lennart (Bengt C.W. Carlsson, who looks like a European Drew Carey with his height, receding hairline, and thick eyeglass frames). Lennert struggles to drag his luggage cart, piled high with suitcases and golf bags, across an airport floor to check-in. He is one of countless travellers performing Herculian acts for the sake of their business trips (Speaking of Herculian acts, the director frames these labors in a single foreground shot that features amazing depth-of-field).
Another scene features a former military general celebrating his one-hundredth birthday. Unimaginably wealthy, though irrevocably broken, he has travelled full-circle, returning to the crib. As the brass assemble before him, the general looks around in a daze. He goes potty in front of the Chiefs of Staff, then performs a Nazi salute. The officers try to fortify the dignity of this much-respected man. But the former general himself, in his current state, has no dignity to fortify.
Also involved in the mix: A mindless mob of men and women clad in business attire. They shuffle out and about the clogged city streets, moaning like zombies, pausing to flog one another. Most haunting, however, is the tale of Anna (Helene Mathiasson), a little girl chosen for a very special purpose. She first appears in a stately living room, surrounded by learned men who have heard of her fine qualities. An aid recites these points, such as her precociousness and her good grades in school, in detail. These virtues, however, turn out to be offenses. In the next scene, Anna receives the proper punishment for her crimes.
Although the events that take place throughout “Songs from the Second Floor” seem absurd, they reflect very modern concerns. Themes such as overwork (the business suit zombies, the airport scene), corporate corruption (Kalle tries to defraud the insurance company; Lennart is told to lay people off in order to raise the stock price, which puts the entire firm at risk), and overpopulation (the learned men, Anna is told, know that “if you throw a birthday party, not everyone can come. If they did, each person would only get a bit of cake this small”) find their way into the larger tapestry.
Meanwhile, is the decrepit old general meant to remind us that we live longer, though not necessarily better? Perhaps he represents something larger, like death overturning. That would explain the hospital corridors with too many patients. Also, the visits to the physician’s office by characters who have received mortal wounds, but still manage to go home afterward. Couple the death of Death with the recurring references to Christ (mostly by occupants of the institution, who, ironically, are much better composed than Kalle), and talk of how everything inevitably comes to an end. One can’t help interpreting these events as the collective calm before that super-sized tsunami of a storm: Armaegeddon.
If the human race is indeed about to receive its cosmic comeuppance, “Songs from the Second Floor” argues that the end has perfect timing. The worn-out appearance of the characters, the non-stop gridlock—all these things imply that civilization has been stretched to the breaking point. Things cannot continue on this path any longer; we suffer from too much stress, too much anger, too much selfishness. Furthermore, we have become morally bankrupt, especially in business. Ruining the lives of thousands is okay if it means a little more for ourselves. Our chief concern has become, as Kalle puts it, acquiring the means to “enjoy ourselves.”
Several scenes involving Lennert, including one where he has just dismissed an employee who had worked for the firm thirty years, imply that the golden carrot many of us expect to find at the finish line invariably turns out to be a pink slip. The solution? Frankly, Andersson doesn’t offer one. There is no resolution, just an ongoing descent towards civilization’s end. This turns out to be the only real weakness of “Songs…,” which relentlessly depicts the world as a miserable place.
Luckily, Andersson’s apocalyptic composition is so visually fascinating. The director understands how to manipulate the depth in each shot, conveying information both in foreground, and in the background. He also uses static camera shots, the exception being a single tracking motion that slowly backs up across a train platform. Modern cinema features so much camera movement, that one doesn’t expect the degree of mileage Andersson wrings from his particular style. There is a single shot, the last one in the film, in fact, that lasts several minutes, and manages to be both funny and disturbing. The humor lies in the timing of the various objects in foreground, middleground, and background. What genuinely disturbs us is their implication.
To accept the last shot is to believe that Grace has already been bestowed, that those who are deserving of heaven have left for the pearly gates above (The “Second Floor” of the title?). Those who remain are in purgatory. Ironically, purgatory doesn’t seem all that different from the world we occupy right now.
Overall rating: **** (out of ****)
Traffic grinds to a halt in an unnamed Swedish city. A man survives being cut in half with a bandsaw. A building moves under its own power. Participants in elaborate costumes perform a ritual of human sacrifice.
What does it all add up to? Are these strange events the signs of a coming apocalypse? Such questions go unanswered in Roy Andersson’s beautiful, but genuinely unsettling film, “Songs from the Second Floor.” The director presents a cross-section of characters, all of whom appear tired, pale, and sick. They are connected in various ways; for example, familial bonds, as in the case of the cartoonishly-large salesman Kalle (Lars Nordh) and his two sons. But the connections go deeper than that. If the different storylines in “Songs…” have anything in common, it is the miserable existence everyone seems to be sharing. Perhaps the world hasn’t ended yet. But clearly, things are so bad that such a drastic event could only improve things.
Kalle has been driven to distraction by his own bad luck. His relationship to his wife is cold and unresponsive. Meanwhile, his two grown-up sons haven’t prospered much in the world. The oldest, Stefan (Stefan Larsson), drives a taxi and drinks too much. When we first encounter him, he is part of a gang that beats up on a hapless foreigner. Tomas (Peter Roth), the younger son, resides in a mental institution. Whenever his family visits, Kalle inevitably berates his sensitivity. Apparently, he “wrote poetry until he went nuts.”
Does insanity run in the family? Kalle, who sells furniture, decides to burn his own store down. Why does he do it? To try and dupe the insurance company. Kalle claims that his showroom, now full of ash piles, had once been occupied by priceless, high-end sofas. He rationalizes the swindle by claiming that it is human nature to buy something, then try to “sell it with an extra zero at the end.”
When the case gets stalled by the insurance company, Kalle makes ends meet by taking a job selling crucifixes. His oily boss (Tommy Johansson) hopes to capitalize on the hysteria surrounding the approaching millenium. Kalle journeys to the train station, giant cross in tow. There, a grim-looking figure begins following. It is Sven (Sture Olsson), Kalle’s former business partner, who commited suicide after having a large sum of money stolen from him.
Is the former furniture vendor seeing dead people? The movie never makes clear whether Sven is a figment of Kalle’s imagination. And what do either of them have to do with the spectre of the boy, the one who walks around with a noose tied around his neck? According to Sven, the youth is looking for his dead sister, whom he played a cruel trick on without ever having the chance to apologize. Perhaps Kalle, like the boy, is supposed to atone for his own sins. He was the one who stole from Sven. Unfortunately, the ghost has no surviving relatives. Even the dead man tacitly agrees that paying back the debt would be very difficult.
While Kalle tries to deal with his very unique dilemna, Andersson cuts to other characters. They include a corporate manager named Lennart (Bengt C.W. Carlsson, who looks like a European Drew Carey with his height, receding hairline, and thick eyeglass frames). Lennert struggles to drag his luggage cart, piled high with suitcases and golf bags, across an airport floor to check-in. He is one of countless travellers performing Herculian acts for the sake of their business trips (Speaking of Herculian acts, the director frames these labors in a single foreground shot that features amazing depth-of-field).
Another scene features a former military general celebrating his one-hundredth birthday. Unimaginably wealthy, though irrevocably broken, he has travelled full-circle, returning to the crib. As the brass assemble before him, the general looks around in a daze. He goes potty in front of the Chiefs of Staff, then performs a Nazi salute. The officers try to fortify the dignity of this much-respected man. But the former general himself, in his current state, has no dignity to fortify.
Also involved in the mix: A mindless mob of men and women clad in business attire. They shuffle out and about the clogged city streets, moaning like zombies, pausing to flog one another. Most haunting, however, is the tale of Anna (Helene Mathiasson), a little girl chosen for a very special purpose. She first appears in a stately living room, surrounded by learned men who have heard of her fine qualities. An aid recites these points, such as her precociousness and her good grades in school, in detail. These virtues, however, turn out to be offenses. In the next scene, Anna receives the proper punishment for her crimes.
Although the events that take place throughout “Songs from the Second Floor” seem absurd, they reflect very modern concerns. Themes such as overwork (the business suit zombies, the airport scene), corporate corruption (Kalle tries to defraud the insurance company; Lennart is told to lay people off in order to raise the stock price, which puts the entire firm at risk), and overpopulation (the learned men, Anna is told, know that “if you throw a birthday party, not everyone can come. If they did, each person would only get a bit of cake this small”) find their way into the larger tapestry.
Meanwhile, is the decrepit old general meant to remind us that we live longer, though not necessarily better? Perhaps he represents something larger, like death overturning. That would explain the hospital corridors with too many patients. Also, the visits to the physician’s office by characters who have received mortal wounds, but still manage to go home afterward. Couple the death of Death with the recurring references to Christ (mostly by occupants of the institution, who, ironically, are much better composed than Kalle), and talk of how everything inevitably comes to an end. One can’t help interpreting these events as the collective calm before that super-sized tsunami of a storm: Armaegeddon.
If the human race is indeed about to receive its cosmic comeuppance, “Songs from the Second Floor” argues that the end has perfect timing. The worn-out appearance of the characters, the non-stop gridlock—all these things imply that civilization has been stretched to the breaking point. Things cannot continue on this path any longer; we suffer from too much stress, too much anger, too much selfishness. Furthermore, we have become morally bankrupt, especially in business. Ruining the lives of thousands is okay if it means a little more for ourselves. Our chief concern has become, as Kalle puts it, acquiring the means to “enjoy ourselves.”
Several scenes involving Lennert, including one where he has just dismissed an employee who had worked for the firm thirty years, imply that the golden carrot many of us expect to find at the finish line invariably turns out to be a pink slip. The solution? Frankly, Andersson doesn’t offer one. There is no resolution, just an ongoing descent towards civilization’s end. This turns out to be the only real weakness of “Songs…,” which relentlessly depicts the world as a miserable place.
Luckily, Andersson’s apocalyptic composition is so visually fascinating. The director understands how to manipulate the depth in each shot, conveying information both in foreground, and in the background. He also uses static camera shots, the exception being a single tracking motion that slowly backs up across a train platform. Modern cinema features so much camera movement, that one doesn’t expect the degree of mileage Andersson wrings from his particular style. There is a single shot, the last one in the film, in fact, that lasts several minutes, and manages to be both funny and disturbing. The humor lies in the timing of the various objects in foreground, middleground, and background. What genuinely disturbs us is their implication.
To accept the last shot is to believe that Grace has already been bestowed, that those who are deserving of heaven have left for the pearly gates above (The “Second Floor” of the title?). Those who remain are in purgatory. Ironically, purgatory doesn’t seem all that different from the world we occupy right now.
Overall rating: **** (out of ****)
Labels: ****, 2000, Roy Anderrson
posted by Phil | 5:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home