The master of mirthful melancholy, Roy Andersson, returns with the Venice Film Festival award-winning rumination on what it means to be human.
With its omniscient narration – a soothing female voice introducing a series of characters who live in Stockholm, Andersson’s film continues the unique style that he perfected in his series of comic masterpieces Songs From the Second Floor, You, the Living and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. Blending wry comedy and pathos, Andersson’s film portrays lives past and present in order to find some meaning in the world and to seek out that most elusive of things: happiness.
What’s makes Andersson’s films so extraordinary is that even though they seek out the darkest aspects of humanity they are works of comic brilliance, even featuring the moments of pure happiness that his characters so desperately desire.
★★★★★ “Andersson’s films are endlessly rewatchable. To view them is to abolish gravity.” - Peter Bradshaw’s Film Of The Week, The Guardian
★★★★★ “A blissful melange of joy and sadness. Andersson’s masterpiece.” - David Jenkins, Little White Lies
