Seriously (yeah, again), really.

[Guest]

Last night I watched the dvd of a Swedish film, Songs from the Second Floor (Sånger från andra våningen) by Roy Andersson. It is not a mainstream film, artsy-fartsy many would call it, but I'm still thinking on it, and was impressed enough to want to know more about its creator. This is his website.

Reading about and from him I recalled our ‘discussion’ on serious threads, and the current one on ‘pro- and re-active’ culture. In that regard, these excerpts made sense to me. I like Andersson’s definition of “serious” and how he fits it into our culture and the truths of being human. I thought some of you might appreciate, if not agree, with him. I need to think more about this, but I hope some of you might want to comment or discuss these ideas. I think they merit the attention of writers, as Andersson's thoughts seem inextricable from who he is as an artist.

Thanks, Perdita
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From his book: Our Time's Fear of Seriousness (Vår tids rädsla för allvar) by Roy Andersson

Introduction: I would like to open a discussion on ethics and seriousness - among other things. Now it is important to say that by seriousness I do not mean the opposite of joking or elation. I mean the word in the sense of taking things seriously, doing things methodically, getting to the bottom, drawing conclusions, clarifying - something that in no way requires a sour expression or the absence of humour.

In many ways I believe that our existence at the end of the 20th century, indeed our entire society, is characterised by a fear of seriousness and a revulsion toward quality. Naturally I hope that this book in its entirety will elucidate this idea. But if I were to attempt to summarise my views in this introduction, it is that seriousness presupposes a belief in the future, and that in our time such belief is a scarce commodity. In my view, our time is marked by a widespread and insidious nihilism that specifically involves a lack of belief in the future and a contempt for moral values. There are, assuredly, many people who defend such values in speech, but very few who do so in action. Not least among those who are charged to manage and direct our society and its development. That this is the case is sensed by one and all. Expressions of quality and seriousness are reminders of that fact, and since they so seldom arise, they appear as startling and unpleasant reminders of the predominating shoddiness and superficiality. This provokes aggressiveness.

It is my view that this societal fear of seriousness is of the same nature as the drug abuser's or the alcoholic's fear of being sober. In our time, knowledge is abused for the same reason that the alcoholic abuses alcohol, namely to avoid being forced to see reality as it is.
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RA on Songs from the Second Floor—Theme / dramaturgy: This film narrative awakens the feeling that the people we shall meet, the milieus they live in, the contexts they participate in, indeed their whole existence is part of an enormous, all-encompassing and extensive journey, a passage, a movement, a pursuing drive, a raking over with a fine-tooth comb of all available life to find if not meaning then at least the possibilities to achieve survival. It is a hunted and confused journey, unplanned and without a known direction. Time runs on and is running short. The fight for survival reigns, and one tastes the scent of "raw existence".

We meet many people in different situations; people who do not necessarily have any relation to each other or even meet. What ties together the situations and these fates is not in the first hand a story but several themes that are each subordinate to an all-embracing main theme. This main theme takes up the question of human inviolability, a concept that is or should be our civilisatory cement, "the human order that we in our essence know and recognise as a foundation for our own and every human existence."

This film narrative seeks to elucidate the prevailing value norms that, despite everything, make possible and sometimes even promote the violation of that which should not be violated. The film wants to make clear these norms, turn them upside-down, set questions before them, discuss them in the most provocative forms, both tragic and comic.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

P, the website was too dark for me and I'm impatient today, but could you please tell me when this film was made, I would really love to see it.
Thanks, ~A~

 

[neonlyte]

Thanks for this link Perdita.

Unfortunately his book is only available in Swedish, I would like to read more of what he has to say.

His introductory statement conveys (better) the sentiment I felt when making the thread. For the moment, I prefer to see how others respond before adding further views.

NL

 

[Guest]

Abby, the film was made in 2000. His website offers clips too. I'm glad for your post, Neon. Andersson's statements actually helped me understand your points better.

I'm still researching him. Here is a bit from an interview from Film_in_Context. I bolded what I agree with, as a writer. P.
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Context: Let's start with the look of Songs From The Second Floor - it's unusually visual, very rich and detailed.

Andersson: I felt that film-making generally didn't reach the level you could find in painting or literature or music. It was for one-time use only, and more and more, the movies were losing their visual power - they were concentrating on the plot only. Especially compared to the 1950s, when I was a student. It was that period when the so-called serious art movie came out, all over the world: we had the East European waves, Kurosawa, Bergman, English realism. That's why I started wanting to be a film director myself. It wasn't only the plot that was interesting; it was the touch, the feeling, something visually rich.

 

[neonlyte]

ABTRUSE

The film was first screened in 2000, I shall seek it out, you brings the cakes, I'll get the coffee this time.

NL

 

[ABSTRUSE]

ABTRUSE

The film was first screened in 2000, I shall seek it out, you brings the cakes, I'll get the coffee this time.

NL

Thanks neon, I wish there was a place where we here could all go and sit together, sip coffee and watch these films.

Thanks N and P for the info, I must see this now!

~A~

 

[Guest]

Abby and Neon, two interested souls are enough. Here's a review that gives a better idea of the film; I did laugh out loud a few times. Looking forward to your reviews, and hopefully others' thoughts here. P.
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Songs from the Second Floor- - Bergman, with a Monty Python twist

The Globe and Mail Review , Liam Lacey, Friday, February 22, 2002

The Swedish film Songs from the Second Floor is one of a series of movies commissioned by European television to mark the millennium (along with Don McKellar's Last Night and Tsai Ming-Liang's The Hole). The film is like an Ingmar Bergman movie as realized by Monty Python: It's seriously gloomy about the loss of spirituality in the world, but at the same time rudely, sometimes hilariously, absurd.

Writer and director Roy Andersson divided the film into 64 episodes, filmed in long single takes, on a two-stage studio for a deliberately artificial look. The episodes are interconnected using a cast of mostly amateur, utterly deadpan actors. The closest thing to a protagonist is an overweight furniture salesman named Kalle (Lars Nordh, whom the director spotted shopping in IKEA), who has burned down his business for the insurance money, and appears throughout covered in soot and ashes.

Each time he appears, Kalle begins a long rant about his misfortune: his destroyed business and his son, now in a mental institution, who drove a taxi and then "wrote poetry until he went nuts." The taxi has been taken over by Kalle's other son, but it's not a particularly good line of work. There's a perpetual traffic jam, not to mention groups of flagellants in business suits who clog the streets, chanting and beating themselves with ropes.

Odd bits of cruelty take place everywhere. A group of men coming back from the gym stop to beat an immigrant. A musician, while doing the old trick about sawing a man in half, makes a dangerous error. A salesman is trying to unload crucifixes, which he thinks will be a hot item in the year 2000: As he talks, one Jesus slips free from a nail and swings back and forth like a clock pendulum.

A group of economists sit in a boardroom, passing a crystal ball around. A committee of well-dressed men prepare to sacrifice a child for the good of the nation. Later, they retire to a hotel bar, drink until they vomit and praise the "bloom of youth."

Kalle, meanwhile, is haunted by the ghost of a man he owed money to; the passengers on the subway break out into a hymn around him; and his pastor, instead of consoling him, begins complaining about his inability to sell his house. The two doctors in the mental hospital turn out to be patients; the crucifix salesman ends up throwing all his wares into a dump.

Andersson's scenes are skillfully staged: What characters are doing in the background is often as interesting as the foreground of a scene. Thematically, the sketches depict a society wrapped up in materialism and short on love and spirituality. There are also reminders of Europe's grotesque past. On his 100th birthday, a general, grasping the bars of his bed like a baby in a crib, stares into space while a commemorative speech is read in his honour. Unexpectedly, he speaks: "Give my regards to Goering."

The military officials, like almost everyone in Songs from the Second Floor, stand about looking doleful and concerned.

 

[neonlyte]

Perdita
It is particularly rewarding to see he applies his wider view of society to his film making, using the 'out of fashion' long shot to emphasise his approach.

I've ordered the film.

Touching on the point you highlighted in your last post, I personally find it regretable that so much 'popular' movie making relies on the spectacular to create richness, each vying to out do the last.

The richness is there in everyday life, if you care to seek it out, perhaps 'we' choose not to see or have forgotten how to appreciate.

A recent writer who attempts to illustrate the rich ordinaryness of life is Jon McGregor - If nobody speaks of remarkable things - opening lines, 'If you listen, you can hear it. The city, it sings.'
NL

 

[Liar]

I'm not one to analyse too much, and if there are political undertones to this, they didn't quite speak to me. I just think it is a damn good movie.

Roy Andersson is one of the prominent spokespersons for a patented Swedish emotion called vemod, which translates to something between sadness and gloom. But with less negative undertones. There is a warmth and ironic humor in the vemod, albeit dark, and a Swede wears his vemod with great pride. It's not self pity, but an mutual agreeent that life sucks from the start, and that it is only with grim determination that we can fill it with something else.

#L

 

[Guest]

Liar, thanks so much. Merely judging from this and other Swedish films I've seen, I know what vemod is. I think it is something universal, only it has different nuances in other cultures; though I think the Scandinavians have a speciality here. I think of "Russian soul" and "Irish black humour" at the moment.

What I liked about Andersson's film was that the political-as-statement (undertones or subtext) was not necessary. He shows "humanity" essentially; that is enough. A Marxist (or whatever ilk) critic could write an essay (perhaps a dissertation) on it, but would have missed the art and truth.

Neon, I so agree with your comments, that is why this film was such a refreshing revelation. Do you know Bresson's work? He is a poet film-maker.

I shall look up McGregor, thanks.

Perdita

 

[shereads]

Roy Andersson is one of the prominent spokespersons for a patented Swedish emotion called vemod, which translates to something between sadness and gloom. But with less negative undertones. There is a warmth and ironic humor in the vemod, albeit dark, and a Swede wears his vemod with great pride. It's not self pity, but an mutual agreeent that life sucks from the start, and that it is only with grim determination that we can fill it with something else.

#L [/B]

Sadness and gloom with negative overtones.

This has made me so happy, L. Thank you.

I suffer from vemod.

 

[Guest]

I suffer from vemod.

No, no, no, Sher. You must luxuriate in it. Otherwise you're just an ordinary depressed person. P.

 

[shereads]

Sadness and gloom with negative overtones.

This has made me so happy, L. Thank you.

I suffer from vemod.

Edited to add: My all-time favorite bumper sticker was one I saw over a decade ago on a nondescript beige sedan in a small sad mill town in South Carolina:

Life is hard. Then you die.

Is that vemod?

 

[Guest]

Life is hard. Then you die. Is that vemod?

I don't think so, the warmth is missing. Or was there a smilie? P.

 

[neonlyte]

Neon, I so agree with your comments, that is why this film was such a refreshing revelation. Do you know Bresson's work? He is a poet film-maker.

I shall look up McGregor, thanks.

Perdita

Possibly, I have the most appauling memory for names, I even have to keep a list of my characters by my keyboard. When time permits, I will peruse and remind myself.

NL