LIGHT WITHOUT MERCY: THE TRAGI-COMIC WORLD OF ROY ANDERSSON

Despite promises of commercial success after his breakout debut feature, A Swedish Love Story (1970), Roy Andersson (1943–) eschewed feature filmmaking for 25 years after the failure of his fascinating second feature, Giliap (1975). Spending the interim largely working in advertising, he resurfaced with the Cannes-acclaimed Songs From the Second Floor, for which he won the Jury Prize in 2000. The film was Andersson’s first feature to exhibit the meticulously composed style that would cement him as one of the 21st century’s most distinctive auteurs. Dubbed a “dystopian Tati” by David Bordwell, Andersson creates intricately staged tableaux in works characterised by long-take, wide-angled sequences that situate his viewers as active participants, seeking out the beauty and humour amongst the everyday and the banal. When developing his films, Andersson works not from a script but his own single-panel watercolour paintings, building elaborate sets with cinematographer and long-term collaborator István Borbás out of his Stockholm base, Studio 24. His works blend the absurd with philosophical introspection, political commentary with endless existentialism. But for all their pessimism and provocation, there is an undercurrent of comedic flair and a deep humanity. This retrospective features almost all of Andersson’s work for the cinema, including the renowned “Living” trilogy – comprising Songs from the Second Floor; You, the Living (2007); and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) – rarely screened commercials, his latest and probably final feature (About Endlessness, 2019), and the celebrated short film World of Glory (1991) that gave us the first taste of his fully mature style.

Wednesday 17 June

7:00pm SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR

Roy Andersson (2000) 98 mins – Unclassified 15+

Andersson’s mordantly hilarious third feature came 25 years after his second and announced the full maturation of his signature style. Adopting a colour palette as jaundiced as his sardonic appraisal of the Western urban human condition, the director draws on quotations from Peruvian poet César Vallejo as he delivers a series of 46 meticulously crafted, unflinchingly deadpan, comically absurdist vignettes. Co-winner of the Jury Prize at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. Preceded by World of Glory Roy Andersson (1991) 16 mins – Unclassified 15+. Andersson’s sardonically titled, breathtakingly audacious short plays like a dress rehearsal for Songs from the Second Floor.

35mm print of Songs from the Second Floor courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia.

9:15pm A SWEDISH LOVE STORY

Roy Andersson (1970) 114 mins – Unclassified 15+

Andersson’s clear eyed, tender, profoundly balanced and deeply affecting debut feature about the trials and tribulations of first love, the restrictions of bourgeois society and the bittersweet nature of being young is a fascinating aesthetic and thematic outlier in his filmography. Made when Andersson was just 27, the film won multiple awards after its premiere at the 1970 Berlinale. Selected as Sweden’s entry into the 43rd Academy Awards, it is now widely regarded as one of the greatest Swedish films ever made.

Wednesday 24 June

7:00pm YOU, THE LIVING

Roy Andersson (2007) 94 mins – M

“Andersson has rightly been compared to the playwright Samuel Beckett for his ability to combine the bleakest tragedy with moments of tenderness and mordant humour” (Socialist Worker). In the second film of his career-defining “Living” trilogy, Andersson presents a droll, minimalist portrait of city life through a series of meticulously constructed, staged and framed vignettes filtered through a rigorously controlled palette of beiges, washed-out blues, greys and sickly greens. 35mm print. Preceded by Nine Commercials Roy Andersson (1979-89) 10 mins – Unclassified 15+ Nine outstanding examples of the over-400 TV commercials Andersson directed during his 25-year “break” between Giliap and Songs from the Second Floor.

9:00pm GILIAP

Roy Andersson (1975) 137 mins – Unclassified 15+

Andersson’s underseen second feature confounded admirers of his celebrated 1970 debut, A Swedish Love Story and was a commercial and critical flop upon release, notwithstanding its selection in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight. Stalling his feature filmmaking career for a quarter of a century, this eccentric neo-noir set around a shabby Swedish seaside hotel has become a cult film and can be enjoyed as a bridge between his realist, lyrical debut and the radically different comedically composed and drolly morose sensibility he adopted for his four celebrated later features.

Wednesday 1 July

7:00pm A PIGEON SAT ON A BRANCH REFLECTING ON EXISTENCE

Roy Andersson (2014) 101 mins – M

Winner of the Golden Lion at the 71st Venice International Film Festival, the final film in Andersson’s “Living” trilogy is, in many ways, the summation of his life’s work and an extraordinary distillation of the themes and stylistic characteristics – long take, long shot, subdued colour palette, deadpan humour, meticulous design, etc. – that define his unique cinema. Aptly named for a bird contemplating humankind and “existence” in a painting by Bruegel, Andersson’s wry, absurdist, Beckettian and darkly comic portrait of contemporary life occupies a netherworld inhabited by the legacies of war, colonialism and the bittersweet sadness of everyday life.

8:55pm ABOUT ENDLESSNESS

Roy Andersson (2019) 75 mins – M

An anthology encompassing the absurdity, sorrow and hopefulness of human existence. Each of the film’s 32 long takes captures a single unique tableau enlivened by Gergely Pálos’ rich and deeply staged cinematography. As with all of Andersson’s films following his signature style, this is a bittersweet and witty “tonic for listless times” (Stephanie Zacharek). Preceded by Something Happened Roy Andersson (1987) 24 mins – Unclassified 15+, which began life as an educational film about AIDS, and Obsessions from the Second Floor Nicolas Schmerkin (2001) 27 mins – Unclassified 15+, a documentary about the making of Andersson’s Tati-esque Songs from the Second Floor.