Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Fredrik Öhman How, on Earth, could this movie have won prizes like Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival and Best Film at Guldbagge Awards? HOW?! The cinematography is... interesting, though. The film itself is unbelievable boring. It's THE worst Swedish film I've ever seen. I can give you a list of a whole bunch of other Swedish movies that are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than this piece of crap. If you like Swedish films, will say. For instance: Låt Den Rätte Komma In, Lilja 4-Ever, Nionde Kompaniet, Livvakterna, När Mörkret Faller, Alla Älskar Alice, Storm, Besökarna, etc.Do yourself a favor: Don't watch Sånger Från Andra Våningen! I'd rather watch Teletubbies 24/7 . . .

Joseph Sylvers Songs From The Second Floor, is the second feature from director Roy Andersson, whose spent his career making according to fellow Swedish director and legend Ingmar Bergman, "The best commercials in the world"(Youtube his name for proff of this). Anderson takes an advertisers eye to this film and inverts it, into around 40 or 50 short vignettes, some with recurring characters, like the man seen on the cover who has burned down his business to collect the insurance but bumbled the job, while most include walkons, and many characters drift in an out of scenes before the movie ends. These short vignettes are nearly all deadpan and absurdist tragi-comic advertisements for peoples lives broken or on the verge of breaking. The antagonist, if there must be one, is capitalism(a subject which the commercial making Anderson is very much aware), and it's de-humaizing effects on all its touches. As bleak as all this sounds, the material is played more often than not for laughs. There's a traffic jam which has clogged the city as if everyone were leaving at the same time, a girl who is blindfolded and lead of a cliff by her village elders, a man accidentally sawed in half by poor magician, men and women in business suits walk down streets in parade's flailing themselves as an act of penance to God so he will prevent the further falling of stocks, and a man followed around by ghosts of friends and strangers. If that weren't enough each scene is composed with a static non moving camera, giving each vignette the detailed composition of a photograph or a painting. The movie could be considered a tragi-comic funeral song for western capitalism and modernity(the film takes place just before the new millennium I think), but a tag like that really doesn't communicate how humane, clever, funny, and accessible this movie really is. It's like a lyrical Monty Python film, or a an absurdist Ingmar Bergman, and yet again it's a film all it's own, structurally, conceptually, and aesthetically, if your interested in where film-making may be going in the future and right now, Songs From The Second floor, is the movie to see, and one of the best of the new millennium

Fredrik Granlund This is an on-the-mark masterpiece that keeps getting better every time I see it. It's about the very essence of being human, about guilt and betrayal, about invoking higher powers and making ends meet. How to get bread and butter for the dinner table. Some of the scenes are just madly humorous, others really heavily sad. There are some rather disgusting scenes as well, but together with Benny Andersson's sharply fine-tuned music, this film becomes a masterly experience. Purchase it, append a digit to the retail price, and resell it to your best friend! Songs is more coherent and less dreamlike than "You the Living". My grading: 9.67

dmulheron@paradise.net.nz Brilliant film that is as funny as it is moving usually in the same frame. One of the great advertisement makers has used all his skill to make the funniest most beautiful and astonishing attack on all that advertising holds dear. He asks the question, Why is it not enough to be a good man amongst men? Inspiring stuff and worth a couple of visits. After all the shitty blockbusters coming out of this part of the world it is great to see a film maker and a country still pushing the boundaries with impassioned, brilliant and humane movie-making. makes me want to give up making crappy television.Danny Mulheron