Songs From the 2nd Floor


Instead of a major storyline, this film has 46 discontinuous episodes, taking place in a variety of bleak locations somewhere in Sweden. The participants all have some connection to a businessman who torched his shop for the insurance money. The characters are a rich assortment of the weird and wonderful, and as they muddle through their lives, they provide dark, comedy for us viewers.
Swedish with English subtitles.


98 minutes.
No persons under 16 .
Comedy, On the Art Circuit

Not currently showing on the local cinema circuit.

You
You'd better get a bucket for the blood...

Credits

Cast
Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson, Torbjörn Fahlström, Sten Andersson
Director
Roy Andersson
ScreenplayRoy Andersson
MusicBenny Andersson
CinematographyIstván Borbás, Jesper Klevenas, Robert Komarek
Sound formatsDolby Digital, Sony Dynamic Digital Sound, DTS
Made in2000
Produced byDanmarks Radio, Nordisk Film & TV-Fond, Norsk Rikskringkasting, Roy Andersson Filmproduktion AB, SVT Drama, Svenska Filminstitutet





Ratings

Scale (Max)20

What the Critics say

The Moviesite
Ian Douglas
3
Cape Argus
Aldrin Naidu
15
The Cape Times
Wilhelm Snyman
15
The Star
Tanya Farber
12
Die Burger
Francois Smith
15
Total Movie
Tat Wolfen
10
eye Weekly
Jason Anderson
20

What the People say

Internet
619 Netizens
15

Average .. 66%

13

Visitor Comments

Ian Douglas: I probably misunderstood this. It is a apparently a black comedy, but the humour is extremely dark, and not the sort that you will regularly laugh out loud at. Some scenes hit alarm bells in my head, saying that ''here is a parody of real life'', which made me think that perhaps more of the scenes were also parodies and that I had totally missed the point. Maybe I'm just to stupid or cinematically illiterate to fathom it. The film itself consists of a number of set pieces, with a stationary camera and almost stationary actors, and nearly all with sickly green colour schemes. Often, there is something happening in the background which is more interesting than the foreground action. The film is likely to offend Christians, as it is rather insulting and dismissive of some aspects of Christianity. The scene where a young girl is sacrificed is particulary haunting, (one of those ''alarm bell'' scenes), and I'm not sure whether the makers are attacking religion or war or society or all three. Overseas reviewers, including Cannes, have raved about this so if you are able to handle an offbeat art movie, you may find it worthwhile.






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