Songs from the Second Floor

Following a twenty-five year break from feature filmmaking, Swedish existentialist Roy Andersson reintroduced his singular vision to the world with this by turns bleak and mordantly funny vision of the tragicomic absurdity of modern life. Forty-six seemingly random, deadpan, and precisely composed vignettes depict a mercilessly capitalist world in breakdown. An office worker is fired in the most humiliating way possible; a magician fails at a magic trick; self-flagellating stockbrokers take to the streets; and one desperate man (Lars Nordh) decides to burn it all down.