User Reviews

SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR is honestly one of the best films I have seen so far in my years of cinematic appreciation. Alice, below, nailed it in her analysis, and there's little I can add that would be useful. I also agree with the critics who compared it to what would happen if Monty Python set their sights on Bergman. The film is both a character study and a meditation on humanity, filled with transcendent moments of beauty that left me completely stunned. It is also a biting satire of corporate greed and its effects on society, and the search for hope in a dying, empty world filled with people who've basically given up. SONGS is a great film that everybody should see.

One critic described this film as being "Slapstick Ingmar Bergman"; it's a great joke, and in many ways a true one. I've never seen a movie like this before, and I haven't laughed so hard at one in years. Every single scene has something off-beat or funny happening in it, so that you may want to see it more than once. (I watched it twice in one day!) The best bit occurs when the businesspeople decide on a rash course of action to save the faltering economy. I won't spoil it for you but trust me, it's one of the blackest comic moments in all of film. Don't miss it!

Songs From The Second Floor has been described as a poem put to film, but after viewing this emotional work of art, I can't help but to feel that a Swedish Opera put to film is a more accurate description.

Directed and written by Roy Anderson, Songs From The Second Floor is a visual and emotional masterpiece. Showing Swedish and to a greater extent all of society, through grey colored glasses.

The cast primarily consists of non actors who made an impression on Roy upon him seeing them in everyday life. All of whom make similar impressions on us the viewers upon seeing them in this film.

Kalle (Lars Nordh) is the heart and star of this movie. It's through his story (one of several) that we fully experience this Swedish Opera. The pain, sadness, guilt, and hopelessness of Songs From The Second Floor, can be felt in every slow moving moment of his life.

Religion, love, poverty, and poetry are all common themes throughout this film. Giving it an identity all of it's own. You could watch a hundred films with similar descriptions, and still consider Songs From The Second Floor the strangest and most original film you've ever seen......Highly recommended for those who liked Northfork and Russian Ark.

This film makes you probably sad and depressed, but it is a wonderful and touching movie about the misery of human life: the ultimate loneliness and hopelessness, which we do not like to think of, but have to face. As the film is based on poetry (by the to me unknown Cesar Vallejo), it does not have a straightforward story. Rather, it is a collection of scenes that all move you at an emotional level, as you see the vulnerability of all the people. The film is moving from reality towards surrealism, although you could see the strong surrealistic pictures as the real and hidden nature of our society, which fails to offer any help to these eternal problems. I should probably go to see this movie again so that I could grasp more from its symbolism, enjoy its excellent and unique film-making, and last but not least to feel it again. This film does not give you hope, but perhaps it makes you more sympathetic to other people, let them be alcoholics, immigrants, old, stupid, mentally ill or just simple "boring philistines".

I have only seen this movie once and that is certainly not enough. The pictures contain more than our perception can handle. The general impression of the film is however, that Roy Andersson has performed a splendid diagnosis of our society, a society whose individuals no longer communicate, no longer interact. He shows us the result of a system that proclaims egoism and neglect. The message is clear: Only together, people can find a way to endure the tragedy of life, only together, we can enjoy the small fragments of happiness that life offers.

I encourage all non-Swedish people to see this film, 99,84% of the world population is not Swedish. This movie concerns all of you.

This film won the prestigious Cannes Film Festival award in 2000, and it is indeed very well made. But damn, it's not what you'd want to take someone to on a date. Unless they have odd tastes.

Songs is a kind of allegorical black comedy about capitalism and the brutalising effects of modern society. The cast is mainly depressed middle-aged men in bad suits and there are multiple storylines and little scenes that all add up to one big condemnation of the Western world: a man who hasn't missed a day in 14 years and decides to go to work rather than have sex with his wife, then gets fired. A poet/taxi driver driven insane by the misery around him. His father, who burnt down his store for the insurance and spends most of the film covered in soot. You get the picture.

The film is full of powerful symbols, like a heap of cheap plastic Christs being thrown onto a rubbish heap, or the eternal traffic jam, and moments of absurdity that made me laugh out loud, such as when the Swedish high command gather to honour a retired commander who is so senile his bedpan gets emptied while they give him a speech. But the even the humour is bleak - there isn't a single happy moment in this film. Frankly I didn't buy it. Life may sometimes be dull, bad things do happen to good people, capitalism can suck, but it just isn't that awful. Forgive me for getting lyrical, but life is too full of hope and friendship and beauty to get sucked down in to this grey, dreary view of the world.

RATING: 7/10

Of the 11 films I saw at this years Vancouver International Film Festival, this was one of the best. Definitely not a film for the masses, but if you're tired of seeing so-so hollywood formula and you and don't mind a shot of bizarre, then this is the film for you. I doubt it will come back for a commercial run, as it is not the kind of film the multiplex crowd would appreciate. If, however, like me, you are a fan of Terry Gilliam and don't mind a slower pace, there is much to recommend this film. Made up of a series of short vignettes, some related and some not, it weaves a story of apocalyptic chaos. A story some of us were expecting to happen Jan.1,2000.

The unmoving camera stares into the lives of a society on the brink. Maybe ours in the near future. A movie that will demand discussion afterwards.A bomb shelter in the blighted landscape of Californication.

Building on the director's two preceding short films - Something Has Happened (1987) and World of Glory (1991) - the presentation of Songs from the Second Floor (2000) draws heavily on a satirical juxtaposition between content and form that is disarming to say the least. Again, it ties in with director Roy Andersson's background in commercial advertising, with any familiarity with even a handful of his celebrated short-form marketing videos establishing his trademark style of deliberately flat, static compositions filled with an impeccably rich attention to mise-en-scene, bracketed by an engaging reliance on surrealist farce and gruelling deadpan. Throughout his career - stretching as far back as even his second feature film, the critically mauled Galip (1975) - Andersson has mined a path of social satire that draws on human fragility and an almost absurd comedy of errors motif that seems to grow from routine, everyday-like misadventures, into full-blown tragedies. At its most simplistic, his work could be interpreted as a series of sketches that attempt to parody the seeming futility of everyday life in such a way as to find humour and hope in even the most despairing of situations.

Andersson's aesthetic then is to document the harsh-realities of the world in the most stylised of forms; capturing despair, loneliness and alienation with the designer gloss of an IKEA commercial. The sense that companies want us to aspire to middle-aged suicide, alcoholism and desperation is incredibly daring in design, especially when captured by Andersson's elaborate mise-en-scene. This interpretation is the most obvious strand of Songs of the Second Floor, and yet it is also the most problematic. With this particular artistic approach in mind, one could always accuse Andersson of hypocrisy, or even of "biting the hand that feeds him"; as the money he makes from his day-job directing TV commercials is pumped into these stark satires on consumerist despair and modern alienation. However, is this really what Andersson was intending? The design of the film all looks real enough, with the director and his crew going to great lengths to design these locations (including the exteriors) on the soundstages at Andersson's Studio 24; and yet, there's an odd, off-kilter exaggeration that is apparent almost immediately. The largely monochromatic colour palette, the drab production design and the actors made up in a lifeless, grey skin tone that recalls the ugliness of Something Has Happened, all suggest a more unreal presentation of reality deliberately overstated; but for what purpose? Is the film merely a Godardian satire on the nature of consumerism and a comment on how the wheels of everyday existence conspire to grind us into place? Or is there something deeper perhaps?

We know the world is a facade - or a work of high-concept design - but it feels real enough; with those endless lines of congested traffic, drunken businessmen, foreign dignitaries and surreal manifestations recalling the kind of absurd (yet mundane) sights that we see every day of our lives! Andersson's use of composition is always magnificent, and the parallels drawn between European political history and modern day consumerism are as intelligent as they are humorous; with many different interpretations covering everything from a microcosm of 20th century existence in the face of the new millennium, to a more imaginative reading, in which the characters exist in a purgatory-like netherworld. Regardless of such interpretations, which are ultimately there for the individual to discover, the film works as a result of the keen humour - which is dark and reminiscent of the work of Aki Kaurismäki, in particular films like Hamlet Goes Business (1987) and The Man Without a Past (2002) - and of course, Andersson's uniquely defiant and immediately iconic style.

With most films, the idea of a static camera represents a fear on the part of the filmmaker; especially in Hollywood, where an immobile camera has come to signify a lack of movement within the story. Not so here. Andersson's genius is to build a self-contained visual tableau in which the world of the story can spill out from within the frame, in a way that creates stories within stories. The action central to the film is kept in the foreground, while the more interesting elements are featured in the background. The director suggests this by the use of the locked-off camera and through his use of windows and mirror imagery; eventually making these entry points our focus of attention, while still allowing the various characters (that are never formally introduced) to jostle for our attention. The episodic nature can be a strain at first, but keep with it, as the film does reward. Admittedly, you can still approach the film as nothing more than a series of inter-connected vignettes that the director uses to hang his message on - with the characters drifting in and out of this constantly disintegrating facade of a city, as the absurd, nightmarish imagery begins to add up - but either way, this is a film that needs to be experienced.

DVD Review: Songs from the second floor

A man, a typical "office-slave" gets fired from his job. None of his co-workers care and hide behind the doors.

An old magician fails to do the "saw the man in half"-trick and saws an innocent man in the stomache.

An old gay couple is living a boring life. One of them is worried about that he fired a man from his job and the other one studies the amazing trafficjam outside the window.

Karl has finally burned down his furniture store and hopes that the insurance company will believe it was an accident.

Karl is the main character in the movie, but we´ll see all these different kind of people everywhere, just worrying about their lives and what´s happning to the city. Why is there trafficjams everywhere and why is the world going completely mad? It´s hard to describe the story in Roy Andersson's "Songs from the second floor", it´s more of a series of paintings, carefully planned and executed on the screen. Roy did this expensive movie without a scrip, relied on amateur actors and with a very downplayed dialouge. Most of the leading actors where found on the streets or in a store, either by Roy or someone else in his team, and using them was probably one of the best things he did with this movie.

Roy Andersson have been Swedens leading TV commerical director since 1968 and have recieved numerous awards for his very special and very personal TV commercials. Most of them are filmed like this movie: just one take, amatour actors and minimal dialouge. In 1970 he did "A swedish love story" and got a big hit on his hands. That resulted in more jobs with TV commercials and it wasn´t until 1975 he did his next film, the massive flop (but now considered a masterpiece) "Giliap". He went bankrupted and continuted succesfully with commericals. So it wasn´t until the year 2000 he did his third, and hopefully not his last film, the mighty doomday vision "Songs from the second floor". Even more inspired from his excellent short movies World of glory (a must-see... it´s impossible to describe) and "Something have happened" about the AIDS plauge and the roots of it, he has finally created the ultimate Roy Andersson-movie.

The film consists of 46 different scenes and set-pieces. Each of them are filmed in one take and with no camera movements (except for one scene, a slow tracking shot on a trainstation). The actors are mostly "ugly" (normal looking and not "movie stars"), painted very pale and bleak. There´s hardly any dialouge, and everything happens to the newly written, lowkey, music by ABBA´s Benny Andersson.

It´s a satire of the deconstruction of social welfares, the society and the people with the power. Ok, it´s a very Swedish movie. Depressing for some people. Extremely funny for others and just to arty for most of the crowd. To me it´s a very funny movie, black comedy at its best, but I believe most people will not describe it that way. But it´s still a powerful drama about lonely people and ghosts from the past. It´s a shame though to talk about it in Sweden, since our nation's way to act during WW2, which is still quite embarresing, but Roy have for the first time brought this up in a Swedish movie for the first time and have made one very funny scene, but still tragic and to some people very controversial. The scene shows a high military man, celebrating his 100th birthday and is totally way up in the blue, at the same time as his colleagues is gonna make a speach about his greatness. When they play a fanfare the old general´s hand is moving up in a nazi-salute and he says with a weak voice "Say hello to Goering..."

The film turns more weird and weird, and in the end the apocalyptic theme is very close. With the sacrifice of a pure child, dead rises from the earth and ghosts are haunting Karl. It never becomes a horror- or fantasytale, just a story about a man and his problems with the society around him. It´s heavy on symbolism, both a good and bad thing. Bad? Mostly because it´s almost to literal and that the film lacks of speed in the middle.

Technical it´s a triumph both for the Swedish filmindustry and for the art of film itself. This wasn´t a cheap film and Roy financed the film mostly himself, mostly without the help of the bad and very poor Swedish filmindustry. The sets built for this movie is HUGE...all, but one take, it´s carefully built sets that´s a must see, specially the airport that never ends, and the trainstation.

The Swedish DVD is excellent and filled with deleted and alternate scenes, a great one hour long documentary, test-clips of three scenes (just faboulus material), audio commentary and some b-reel footage. The picture and sound is sharp and clear, and for those who cares, it´s also in anamorphic widescreen. The bad thing about the extras are this: you can´t remove the audio commentary during the deleted scenes. It´s sad, because in one of them ("the lobster party") there´s dialouge which is impossible to hear now. The cover of the DVD also states that a trailer is included, although there's no trailer on it. Not good. It´s also a bad thing that this edition isn´t avaible with english subtitles.

I hope all you guys and girls out there are gonna have a chance to see this strange movie, even if some of you might find it lousy and boring but the rest the total opposite! :)

/Fred Anderson

(And a big thank to my close friend Rob who helped me correct some of the english spelling)

Through a series of powerful, enigmatic images, Roy Andersson in Songs From the Second Floor develops a vision of present-day urban life that is both shocking and oddly familiar. These images, which include a man covered head-to-toe in ash after his business has burned down, an endless stream of bumper-to-bumper traffic heading nowhere, a poet who ends up in a mental hospital, people flagellating themselves in a street procession, and a trash heap of crucifix symbols, create a narrative of mood rather than plot.

Songs From the Second Floor contains 46 dark yet often amusing and sometimes beautiful vignettes. The camera is static throughout and barely moves, presenting a futuristic world that looks empty and feels soulless, yet is strangely moving in its bleak vision.

This mood, aided wonderfully by a soundtrack composed by Benny Andersson of the band ABBA, might be described as desolate. Yet, thankfully, Anderson never allows things to become too heavy. He shows a great feel for dark humor, reminiscent of writers such as Beckett or Kafka. The final result is a great achievement--a movie that forces us to look directly at the inhumanity of modern life, while remembering the good also: that people persevere, are capable of kindness toward each other, and that there is humor in even the darkest of events.

Unnerving, yet strangely reassuring, Songs From the Second Floor is one of the most original films I've seen in a long time and one of the most challenging.

Possibly incomprehensible to those who have never lived in Sweden, where whole hours somehow manage to lose themselves in a meditative calm that exists nowhere else. Songs from the Second Floor is truly Ingemar Bergman meets Monty Python, as Roy Andersson non too gently deflates the pretentious, the pompous and the self important. The sparse dialogue and hugely tongue-in-cheek solemnity will either offend the spectator to the point of rage, or scratch the itch that nothing else quite reaches. I adored it. Like raw oysters, broccoli or goat milk - you'll either connect with the Roy Andersson brand of iconoclastic insanity and love this one ... or you'll hate it with a passion. There'll be no fence-sitting with this Nordic treasure.

I would just like to say that, those who don´t like this movie must have a heart of stone and a mind that´s so blocked that you can´t see the connections to our society and the ways of man. Our loneliness, our longing for love, our inability to communicate. This film broke my heart, but at the same time it was a wholesome experience, and I was glued to the screen for as long as it lasted. I will never forget the pictures from this film, they still linger inside of me. It´s just so beautiful.

I recommend everyone to see this film! If you´re prepared for an inner journey.(And I know that some people are afraid of this kind of "deep" stuff)Not if you just want entertainment for the moment. If you want to see an action-loaded flick or a nice love comedy instead, fine, do so. But I say: If you´ll only see one and only one more film in your life, see this one!

OVERALL: It's not really a 2/10. I'm just being exceptionally brutal because this film had so much potential, but it lost itself in a swamp of modernist absurdism which doesn't have a point. This is yet another film where the director chooses style over substance. The result is two hrs of gimmicky schlock which will intrigue the film school teachers, but those of us who are looking for a fulfilling literary experience (poetry, plot, theme, etc) will be highly disappointed.

SCRIPT: There are basically 10 lines of dialogue which are repeated a dozen times each. Count how many times someone says, "Beloved is the man who sits down." Literally about 12. Well, that's one Swedish phrase that's been etched into my brain for no good reason. Honestly I haven't heard so much repetition since the last time I sang "99 bottle of beer on the wall" round the campfire.

VISUALS: The entire film has a very drab, bleached white appearance which makes you want to smack the side of your VCR a few times. Yes, this is just another gimmick which is initially novel, but it gets old after 45 minutes of the same thing. Also, each scene was filmed entirely in one shot. Usually I consider that to be a huge plus (e.g. Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope", Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmoniak"). But in this case it was too obvious and excruciatingly dull. "Rope" and "Werckmeister" worked well with the continuous shot because the camera was dynamic and fluid, much like the human eye. But in this film the camera only moves once in the entire picture, so there are no dynamics at all. Combine this with the aforementioned bleached-white lack of contrast and shadow, and the result makes you feel like you're a security guard watching a video monitor at the mall. For 2 hours.

MUSIC: To all you ABBA fans, don't get your hopes up. It's true that Benny did the soundtrack for this film, but that only consists of about 4 chords and 12 notes played on a cheap synthesizer. It ain't no "Dancing Queen" that's for sure.

HUMOUR: This movie is so thick with situational sarcasm that I couldn't tell where the gags were. In that sense it is indeed like Monty Python (which others have pointed out), but--make no mistake!--this refers to the mood only. There are no funny lines in this film. So just imagine watching a Monty Python flick with the sound turned down, and there you have it. Not exactly a laugh riot anymore, is it?

HIGHLIGHTS: So what's left to like about it? I'll tell you what: it's just plain different. It's so different that it managed to hold my attention all the way through, as I was hoping that there would be some sort of payoff. In that sense, it may be refreshing to some of you. If you've been gorging yourself on Hollywood action flicks, this might be just what you need to cleanse the palate (just remember to spit it out afterward as wine connaisseurs do!). Doubtlessly, that is why Cannes showered it with awards--it's not good; it's just plain different.

But don't get me started on Cannes.

The sets are nice--very grand and oppressive like in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil". I should also add that that the final scene is somewhat impressive (visually), so if you do make the mistake of renting this film, don't chuck it out the window without fast forwarding to the end.

MY RATING: I would give this a 1/10, but that rating is generally reserved only for films with animal cruelty in them. Aside from a few gawd-awful nude scenes with old pasty fat people, there isn't anything personally offensive. So I'll give this film a 2.

I have seen a lot of movies, but recently not many have completely blown me away. Songs from the Second Floor did. The film does look accomplished, the scenery is stunning and the cinematography is done with deliberate disquietingly static insistence. The pace is meditative, again deliberately done to perhaps give the characters more humanity, but it is never dull. The story is told with a haunting and somewhat surrealistic atmosphere with some biting satirical elements, and even more impressive is its ability to effectively convey modern life's coldness and chaos. Songs from the Second Floor is directed beautifully and while completely improvised there is not an amateurish note in sight. In conclusion, an astounding film really. 10/10 Bethany Cox

'Beloved be the one who sits down.' - Cesar Vallejo

This is an outstanding, surreal, nightmarish, apathetic, absurd, indelible, and at times, darkly amusing picture from Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson. The film offers us a selection of chaotic, compelling and haunting still sequence shots (the camera doesn't move once throughout the entire film), each of them wonderfully presented in dull, lifeless colours and framed in stylish composition. Most of the people in the film seem to be disenchanted nomads, lost in a futile world. Their faces are very pale, as though they have been white-powdered to death. The film is affecting because it is stationary, yet it's conveying so much forceful emotion. It wants to move but it can't. It's stuck in a state of perpetual inertia, just like the constant gridlock of traffic that is strangling the city.

The film opens with a man talking to a man under a sun bed (we can only see his feet), who tells him, "Everything has its day. What's the point of staying where there's only misery? When that day comes I'll be long gone... and so should you!". Shortly after this we see the man who was in the opening scene firing one of his staff of thirty years service. The man hangs around his leg, pleading with him, and is dragged along while the boss tries to walk away (he's in a hurry has he's got a game of golf to play). The next sequence shows a man stabbed and beaten by a group of men in an unprovoked attack, whilst a line of people stood at a bus stop look on regardless. The next scene offers some dark humour. A magician attempts to cut a volunteer in half but it all goes terribly wrong. We then briefly see the the poor chap in hospital and later at home with his wife, groaning in agony.

The central figure of the film, though, is Kalle, the portly owner of a furniture shop. He sets his shop on fire to get the insurance money. The first time we see Kalle is on a tube train. The sequence is in slow motion and the other passengers on the train open their mouths in unison to classical music. Kalle is distraught and disillusioned with his world. "It's hard being human", he moans. One of his sons has, in Kalle's words, "Wrote poetry till he went nuts". His son now resides in a mental hospital. Kalle's other son is a taxi driver whose wife has left him. One scene has Kalle being questioned by two insurance investigators while a group of flagellants walk past his furniture shop in the road outside. Kalle is tormented by dead people following him, including his associate Sven who committed suicide, and a Russian boy hanged by the Nazis.

Other memorable scenes include one at an airport where a line of overloaded trolleys, piled high with towers of luggage, are all being attemptedly pushed by people (with great difficulty). A former general on his 100th birthday gives a Nazi salute to some military personnel who are visiting him in a rest home. A man tries to set up a business selling crucifixes but finds the business venture fails - "He's just a crucified loser", the man says. A young girl is blindfolded and pushed over a cliff in an act of sacrifice by a religious sect. A man's hand gets trapped in a train door. A man vomits on a bar while an inebriated woman clasps a stool, unable to find her feet. The film reminded me of Buñuel's The Phantom of Liberty. It's a magnificent film that will linger in the mind of the spectator for quite some time. Unique surreal cinema.

(Flash Review)

After 25-30 minutes, I could take no more and I turned it off. Something I rarely do. From cut #2, I was annoyed, lost, bored as it was unable to clearly or convincingly communicate anything worthy enough to hold my attention. It felt distractingly low budget. Each character was irritating and hard to relate to. The scenes were strange, which is why it earned 2/10 yet they sadly amounted to nothing. Avoid at all costs.

Songs From The Second Floor is so desperate in trying to be smart, original and unique, it forgets that cinema actually has to try to tell a story the best way possible.

Several stories intervine at what seems to be the apocalypse, with insurance fraud, heavy traffic, talking to the dead, hate and fear for strangers and a magician's act gone wrong all play some part.

All nice and good, and some scenes are interesting and funny, but what are the writers saying? It's too much of a 'different look on humanity - think about it!' kinda movie. Too little guidelines if you'd ask me.

At other times the movie is downright boring and if it weren't for the perfect ending the movie would be a waste of time. Now it's... well not that, although there are tons of better ways to spend your hour and a half...

4/10.

I'm broad minded about movies and drama, honest. I believe my taste to be eclectic. But this movie is sheer pretentious twaddle. It had nothing whatever to commend it. We couldn't stick it. Thank goodness we had waited for the video as that enabled us to fast forward once we couldn't stand it any more. Forget it.

'Songs from the Second Floor' is one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. It is also very fascinating and most of the times I liked it, but I didn't really care. I liked the single scenes, every one only existing out of one take, and therefore it kept my attention.

The movie plays in some kind of apocalyptic world where people are whipping themselves and have conversations with the dead. Of course all these things have symbolic meanings, most of them pretty understandable, but like I said, I didn't really care. Still, every little episode here can be enjoyed. In every shot but one the camera is just standing there and catches a nice image while something is happening in that image. Only one take has a moving camera, when the leading man is talking to a dead friend.

Saying more about 'Songs' would be pretty pointless, since I would only explain that it is pretty weird. You will like it or not, but it all depends on taste. At least it is something very different from every other thing you have ever seen and that alone makes it worth watching. Even if you do not like the movie as a whole, you must be able to appreciate the single scenes.

This film no doubt thrills some viewers--especially those who are real fans of the Modernist/Absurdist movement (where confusing and annoying the audience is considered a plus or making a commentary about the banality of modern life!). However, for the average SANE person, this film is a terrible picture--punctuated with only a few decent moments here and there. It reminds me a lot of the Gerard Depardieu film, BUFFET FROID--which also has a pretty small but devoted audience. Please understand that if you LIKE films that are confusing and give the average viewer a headache, then "go for it"--just don't fault me for saying that the average person won't like this film. And, when I say weird and unwatchable, I am not talking about MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL--this is much easier to understand and coherent than this film (plus I LIKE the HOLY GRAIL).

The biggest problems for me are that the film isn't funny, interesting and occasionally is repellent. Apart from a singing number on the subway and some obviously mechanical rats running across the street that were kind of funny, I found nothing humorous about the film at all. And the plot of the world falling apart COULD have either been funny or interesting but it just wasn't. Now as for the repellent, I don't like seeing obese older naked women with large protruding stomachs and massive mounds of pubic hair (enough on one woman for the average sorority). YUCK. And, people being stabbed to death for no reason. And, a guy burning mounds of crucifixes and saying "f--k Christ". And, later in the film, an old guy sits at the bar and spews buckets of vomit--and we are not talking about funny cartoony vomit like what is seen in the Python's films, either.

A true Absurdist film really isn't necessarily meant to be funny but to cause a visceral reaction and deliberately violate conventions. Well, on this level it certainly succeeds, but life is too short to watch unpleasant and pointless crap like this.

PS--apart from graphic and disgusting nudity, devout Christians or anyone offended by images that might be seen as sacrilegious should not watch the film.

PPS--I love international cinema and don't mind "depressing" films. But, there is a limit and this film goes WAY beyond what I consider watchable.

This movie is stunningly beautiful. It seems like each scene has been thought over for decades to make it perfect. The movie itself contains a series of smaller scenes all resembling something, what it resembles you have to find out for yourself, much like Kafka's poems. The movie switches from realism to surrealism and is as I see it a reaction to the unpersonal modern day society. It is easily the best movie I have ever seen, and the movie that touched me the most too. Suits Europeans more then Americans in my opinion since Europeans have a more serious view on movies then Americans and because Europeans tend to be a bit brighter then Americans.