Sweden

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.

BLOOD PARADISE: fun with horror

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BLOOD PARADISE

In the horror comedy Blood Paradise, the author (Andrea Winter) of lurid best sellers is wallowing in malaise after her latest book bombs.  For a change of pace, she gets away to the Swedish version of an agriturismo, a remote and spartan farm.  The farm has every earmark of Gothic horror, and Blood Paradise has great fun with every creaky door and ominous scarecrow.  The farmer explains his wife’s grave out back, “she loved the garden but now it’s only a garden of death”.  The farmer’s creepy middle-aged sister is obsessed with dolls.  His menacingly silent, paunchy son is mostly shirtless and fondling a shotgun.  And the author’s driver is her biggest fan – and seriously unhinged.  Just when the blood starts splattering, the author’s hunky, dim and besotted boyfriend Teddy shows up for a surprise visit in a white suit.

Part of the fun is that the author has adventuresome sexual fantasies and makes a living envisioning gruesome scenarios; her especially rich imagination makes every ominous cue seem even more alarming.

Blood Paradise is written by its star Andrea Winter and directed by Patrick von Barkenberg (who also plays Teddy); it is the first narrative feature for both.  Winter is a good sport about her own nudity, and has fun playing the author as a brat.  She also has fun with Teddy’s allergies, which erupt at the most importune times.  And there’s a very amusing homage to Psycho.

This is a Swedish movie set in Sweden, but almost all the dialogue is in English.  Blood Paradise plays at the 2019 Cinequest.

THE SQUARE: ambitious, brilliant and almost cohesive

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Claes Bang in THE SQUARE. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

The Square, the social satire from Swedish writer-director Ruben Östlund is one of the most ambitious movies of the year.  Often LOL funny, and just as often uncomfortable, The Square hits moments of triumph that would constitute a great movie if they were braided together more cohesively.

The Square is set in a world that is ripe for mockery – Christian (Claes Bang) is chief curator at a Stockholm museum of modern art.   The museum is funded by the very rich, and the art is impenetrably pretentious, inaccessible to all but those predisposed to  deconstruct it (or at least pretend to).  One installation is described in straight-faced mumbo jumbo as “relational aesthetics”.  Another is a roomful of conical piles of rubble, with a museum guard rebuking visitors with a stern “no pictures!”.

Christian is comfortable in his privilege, but he is curious about exploring social inequity – but only as an intellectual exercise. Christian is interested in street beggars (and finds one especially ungrateful one), and The Square is filled by “help me” moments.  He is victimized by a robbery that seems like performance art, and  sets off on an adventure called the “Tesla of Justice”, which goes horribly awry.

There are lots of laughs in The Square.  Christian admonishes a colleague not to use Comic Sans font in a threat letter.  There’s a very funny tug of war in a post-coital spat.  A self-congratulatory on-stage interview with a precious artist wearing a blazer over pajamas, is disrupted by an audience member with Tourette’s who ejaculates “cock godammit”  and the like, all while the audience pretends it’s all ok.  And there’s a riotous thread with PR guys making a BS pitch that results in the very most counter-productive promotional video (think Springtime for Hitler in The Producers).

Östlund is very gifted at finding the humor in interruptions.  The most serious, intimate and formal discussions are interrupted by a baby crying, construction noise and lots of cell phones ringing.

And, finally, there is a museum opening gala with a “welcome to the jungle” theme.  This segment of The Square could stand alone as a sort film and probably win an Oscar.  (Again, completely universal terror is interrupted by a ringing cell phone.)  But, it’s unclear how this fits inside The Square’s themes.

Elisabeth Moss and Claes Bang in THE SQUARE. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

The Square is very well-acted.  Claes Bang is exceptional as Christian, exuding the ennui of Marcello Mastroianni in 8 1/2, Gabriele Ferzetti in L’Avventura and David Hemmings in Blow-up.

As an American journalist, Elisabeth Moss (who is always excellent) gets to show us her playful side, which is a treat;  there’s a wonderful Moss moment when her eyes tell us she’s made a decision about her sex life while in the restroom line.

The most stunning performance is by Terry Notary as the performance artist at the gala.  Notary, a stunt coordinator, choreographer and movement coach, is a master of motion capture, and his work has been featured in the Planet of the Apes and The Hobbit franchises and Andy Serkis’ Jungle Book.  It’s one thing to imitate an ape, but Notary’s performance in The Square plays off of and dominates a banquet room full of other actors.  It’s a really singular performance.

Terry Notary (on table) in THE SQUARE. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures.

I loved Ruben Östlund’s Force Majeure, which made my list of Best Movies of 2014
Force Majeure was Sweden’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Oscar. It is available on DVD from Netflix and streaming from Amazon, iTunes, Vudu and Xbox Video.  Force Majeure was a satirical drama with some very funny moments; The Square is a satirical comedy with some very serious themes.

The Square is a movie that my head liked a lot, but it didn’t thrill my heart.  Filled with brilliant moments, it just doesn’t hold together as one cohesive great movie.

[SPOILER: At the end, Christian tries to be genuinely helpful by making amends –  but he is proven ultimately and ironically helpless.]

 

THE 100-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO CLIMBED OUT THE WINDOW AND DISAPPEARED: two Swedish comedies in one

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100 year old
The Swedish comedy The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared is a rich mixture of absurdity and broad physical humor.  As a geezer escapes from his nursing home and (slowly) embarks on an adventure, he see flashbacks to his earlier Zelig-like life.  As the local police launch a half-hearted (or quarter-hearted)  search for him,  he happens into a criminal gang’s suitcase of cash and picks up a motley crew of confederates.  There are two comedies here – the series of absurd coincidences that put him in the most salient moments of 20th Century history AND the guffaw-inducing chase story.   Both comedic threads are satisfying and very funny.

Robert Gustafsson is effective playing the protagonist Allan from ages 18 through 100.  I loved Iwar Wiklander as Allan’s partner-in-adventure Julius.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared has also edged its way into a four-way tie for 12th place on my list of Longest Movie Titles.  It’s a hoot.

Cinequest: SWEDEN’S COOLEST NATIONAL TEAM

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SWEDEN'S COOLEST NATIONAL TEAM
SWEDEN’S COOLEST NATIONAL TEAM

The winning Nerd Olympics documentary Sweden’s Coolest National Team brings us into a world that I didn’t know existed – international competition in memory sport. That subject is the first factor that elevates Sweden’s Coolest National Team above the familiar arc of the sports movie. We see people who can remember the exact order of a shuffled deck of cards, seemingly endless strings of binary numbers, even entire dictionaries. (The current world record for memorizing the order of a shuffled deck of cards is 21.19 seconds.) It is a jaw-dropping exhibition.

We meet the sport’s founder and several world champs, and we do end up at the World Memory Championship.  Along the way, we see the universal aspects of competition – the pressure to perform, the rookie’s overconfidence, comeuppance for both the brash rookie and the complacent old champ. One competitor’s sister phones their parents to report “he got crushed”.

But what makes Sweden’s Coolest National Team so engaging is that its subjects are so fascinating.  As one might expect, the competitors don’t seem particularly athletic and many are downright geeky. Several of the past world and Swedish champions are remarkably devoted to the sport and amazingly generous in helping younger memory sportsmen. Then there is the smug yuppie who dresses like he is giving a TED Talk and seeks to mold the sport into something that he can monetize.

And it has plenty of slyly funny moments – just as our yuppie complains about a former champ making the sport look like it’s just for oddballs, the old geek wanders through a competition with an alarming case of Plumber’s Butt.

The film’s epilogue notes that one of the subjects won the World Championship in 2013. He repeated his win in 2014.

Sweden’s Coolest National Team, which flies past the audience in a just-right 58 minutes, will have its North American premiere at Cinequest on February 25 and play again on February 27 and March 1, all at Camera 12.