Roy Andersson

BEING A HUMAN PERSON: this is what I mean

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Roy Andersson in BEING A HUMAN PERSON

In the documentary Being a Human Person, we meet the filmmaker Roy Andersson as he makes what he acknowledges to be his final film at age 76. Andersson is an auteur who makes very, very odd movies that are humanistic, deeply profound and mostly funny. The movies, like A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence and this year’s About Endlessness, are comprised of apparently random tableaus in which ordinary-looking Scandinavians do very little.

In thinking about Being a Human Person, I was initially going to recommend it to folks who have seen Andersson’s films. But then it occurred to me that it really a perfect vehicle to introduce newbies to Andersson’s work.

Now, I treasure watching Andersson’s films, but if you’re looking for movies that immediately make sense, then Andersson, most assuredly, is not your guy. In each film, Andersson curates a range of human behavior and lets the audience try to connect the dots. But when he is interviewed for Being a Human Person, he’s happy to tell you what he intends the movies to mean.

Andersson does not equate success and happiness. A wunderkind, Andersson directed a hit movie at age 28, and then plunged into depression. He bought a central Stockholm warehouse in 1981 to “develop my own language”. He built his studio inside and lives in an apartment above.

Andersson’s process is as peculiar as are his movies. He builds the set for each vignette one at a time in his studio. He expertly deploys a range of old school techniques like trompe-l’œil.

Andersson’s movies are about the foibles of everyday humans. They show people’s moments of fragility, vulnerability, confidence and lack thereof. One of his colleagues observes, “Roy sees people who aren’t in the movies.  It’s people who who haven’t been very successful in life. He gives them dignity .” For research, Andersson sits in sidewalk cafes to people-watch (“so I can see the menu“).

Andersson himself notes, “When you think there’s no escape, you are a prisoner in your own mortality.“ Overusing alcohol to combat boredom, Andersson struggles to finish his movie.

Director Fred Scott made excellent use of his access to Andersson, Andersson’s coworkers and family to tell this story. Being a Human Person is streaming from Laemmle.

ABOUT ENDLESSNESS: damned if I know

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Photo caption: ABOUT ENDLESSNESS

In About Endlessness, Roy Andersson, that genius of deadpan existential cinema, probes the meaning of human life.

Andersson movies are a series of vignettes, with ponderous Scandinavians arranged or paraded in front of a stationary camera, in a way that critic Justin Change has likened to diorama. There is never a closeup. It is all superbly photographed by cinematographer Gergely Pálos.

Now, Andersson is not for everyone. This is what I wrote in 2014 about his most recent film:

Some viewers are going to hate, hate, hate the droll Swedish existentialist comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence, but it’s kind of a masterpiece. For most of its 101 minutes, dull Swedes sit and stand talking about dull things.  It’s no secret that the Scandinavians (who The Wife refers to as “Your people”) are not the most lively bunch.  Filmmaker Roy Andersson uses this trope to probe the meaning of life itself.

About Endlessness, with all its randomness, is more direct than A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence. This time, in a psychiatry office and in a student’s bedroom, Andersson is explicit. When a doubting priest asks the point of life without religious belief, his shrink answers, “Damned if I know.  Maybe being content with being alive.” 

Most vignettes are absurdist and darkly funny, often about someone deeply engaged in something that Andersson sees as trivial. But, About Endlessness, contains some life and death moments, mixed among the clearly meaningless.

This time, some of Andersson’s vignettes are bracing. In one, a man has committed a horrific and irreversible act that he has come to realize, too late, was profoundly misguided.

Two other vignettes are among the sweetest you’ll see this year – one with young women bursting into into an impromptu dance, the other with a father tying his small daughter’s shoes.

About Endlessness is an art film in the best sense, an experience that demonstrates what what cinema can do in the hands of a talented artist with something to say. I recognize that it’s not for everyone – but it’s only 76 minutes, so give it a chance. I’m putting it on my list of Best Movies of 2021.

In just over a month, the 78-year-old Andersson will be out with another film, Being a Human Person.

About Endlessness is streaming on Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE: deadpan doesn’t begin to describe this movie

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A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE
A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH CONTEMPLATING EXISTENCE

Some viewers are going to hate, hate, hate the droll Swedish existentialist comedy A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence, but it’s kind of a masterpiece.   For most of its 101 minutes, dull Swedes sit and stand talking about dull things.  It’s no secret that the Scandinavians (who The Wife refers to as “Your people”) are not the most lively bunch.  Filmmaker Roy Andersson uses this trope to probe the meaning of life itself.

Salon.com critic Andrew O’Hehir has accurately described this film as “extreme-deadpan”.  It is made up of vignettes filmed in static shots where people hardly move for 1-4 minutes – a looooong time.  There is nothing on the walls of any of the bleak rooms.  The characters converse in empty social conventions, talking about weather and such.  Everyone says, “I’m happy to hear that you’re doing fine” because they can’t think of anything else to say.  The highlight of their lives is when a comely young woman removes a stone from her shoe.  In one bus stop discussion about what day of the week it is, we have the theme distilled: “it would be chaos” if we didn’t follow the routine. All of these people need more than a little chaos.

This is the third movie in a trilogy by Andersson. (I’ve seen and relished one of the prior films, Songs from the Second Floor).  Like Pigeon, Songs is very funny, but Pigeon is more ambitious and digs deeper.

In the primary recurring thread, we follow a pair of sad sack novelty salesmen, who see their hopeless mission as “to help people have fun”.  The joke is there may not be any value/fun/point to life but ESPECIALLY if you are a brooding Swede.

During the end credits, there is a final contrast, juxtaposing the unrestrained American rockabilly music set against an image of mordant Swedes.

There are absurdist episodes where 18th Century King Carl XII rides his steed into a modern Swedish cafe.  (It helps to know that Carl spurned the company of women and that his defeat in the Battle of Poltava signaled the end of Swedish empire.)

And then there is a horrifyingly surreal dream sequence that illustrates the horrors of European colonialism.  It is about inhumane brutality that Andersson believes still haunts Europe until forgiveness is sought; there is a reference to Sweden’s brief colonial past. This segment is less evocative (and even unnecessary) for US viewers unless we relate it to our own legacy of slavery.

Is the movie pointless? Or is the point that life is pointless?  We do see some brief tender moments of a couple at a window and another in a meadow.  The foe, it seems, is loneliness.  We have only each other.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Contemplating Existence is available to stream from Netflix Instant, Amazon Video, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.