Rent Songs from the Second Floor (2000)

3.4 of 5 from 170 ratings
1h 35min
Rent Songs from the Second Floor (aka Sanger fran andra vaningen) Online DVD & Blu-ray Rental
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Synopsis:
Set at the dawning of the new millennium, this hilarious masterpiece is from the brilliantly offbeat worldview of Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson, director of the acclaimed 'You, the Living'. Described by critic J. Hoberman as 'slapstick Ingmar Bergman', this witty yet resonant film unfolds as a series of comic inter-connected vignettes that portray scenes from an urban world which has ground to a halt and whose citizens teeter on the brink of madness.
Actors:
Lars Nordh, , , Torbjörn Fahlström, Sten Andersson, Rolando Núñez, Lucio Vucina, , , , Nils-Åke Eriksson, Hanna Eriksson, , Sture Olsson, Fredrik Sjögren, Stephen Whitton, Jöran Mueller, Eva Stenfelt, Helene Mathiasson, Kristina Hukkala Ranch
Directors:
Writers:
Roy Andersson
Others:
Roy Andersson
Aka:
Sanger fran andra vaningen
Studio:
Artificial Eye Film Company Ltd.
Genres:
Comedy
Countries:
Sweden
Awards:

2000 Cannes Jury Prize

BBFC:
Release Date:
14/03/2011
Run Time:
95 minutes
Languages:
Swedish LPCM Stereo
Subtitles:
English
DVD Regions:
Region 2
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 1.78:1 / 16:9
Colour:
Colour
Bonus:
  • Excerpts from Roy Andersson films
  • The making of the Burnt furniture scene
  • The making of the Magician scene
  • Obsessions from the second floor featurette
BBFC:
Release Date:
13/07/2015
Run Time:
98 minutes
Languages:
Swedish LPCM Stereo, Swedish DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Subtitles:
English
Formats:
Pal
Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen 1.66:1
Colour:
Colour
BLU-RAY Regions:
B
Bonus:
  • The making of the Burnt furniture scene
  • The making of the Magician scene
  • Obsessions from the second floor featurette
  • Excerpts from Roy Andersson films

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Reviews (3) of Songs from the Second Floor

An awful, boring, unfunny, confusing Swedish film - Songs from the Second Floor review by PV

Spoiler Alert
01/09/2015

This film is not only confusing. It is also deeply unfunny. Really.

I saw the first film in this trilogy and that was pretty good.

This, however, looks like something to emerge from some pretentious drama school workshop.

Not one single laugh in the whole thing.

And yes, I do appreciate oddball and dead pan and off-beat humour. But this is not humour, It's just dull. An utter yawn-fest.

To say the British don't do humour 'as well as this' is utterly absurd. Even the most unfunny 'diverse, female' tedious BBC comedienne can create more laughs than this pretentious load of drivel.

No stars. Stick to making meatballs, Sweden, if this is the best you can do for comedy.

2 out of 4 members found this review helpful.

Wow wierd - Songs from the Second Floor review by JD

Spoiler Alert
26/01/2015

The Swedes really can do far out humour. This is so strange that you have to get in the mood before it starts. Some of the rise and fall of reginald perrin approaches it but no British comedy has matched it. As an example there is a traffic jam through which winds a protest rally of students whipping themselves. They are only ever however in the background, it takes most of the film to realise what they are doing. Some of the humour is done so dead pan that you need to adjust the contrast setting. Not for mainstream audiences but highly recommended for a more experimental enthusiast.

1 out of 5 members found this review helpful.

Black comedy left out on a beach to weather until bleached to a shade of long dead whale - Songs from the Second Floor review by PT

Spoiler Alert
30/08/2020

Probably the funniest film you will ever see without actually laughing. Is this even supposed to be a comedy? Terry Gilliam’s Brazil is frequently evoked in reviews of Roy Andersson’s films but I think the work of Chris Morris is more apposite. Like “Blue Jam”, but with the jokes taken out, its only really funny afterwards when the immediate unease at what you are watching has safely passed.

The film is comprised of a series of linked vignettes in which the pallid occupants of an imagined Scandinavian city find themselves in the grip of a millennial crisis. The gridlocked streets are full of self flagellating office workers whilst church and state have united to try child sacrifice as their solution to the problem. Ghosts from the main protagonist’s past have come back to haunt him and to make matters worse so have unknown ghosts from the past of other people.

Much in the manner of Jaques Tati’s “Playtime” every scene is meticulously staged in the studio to create an alternative reality but here it is a doomed alternative Sweden which all the tasteful bentwood furniture in the world is not going to save.

I can’t think of any other genuine work of art to emerge from all the hullaballoo around the end of the last millennium and I can’t believe I have only found it 20 years later. This film deserves much wider acclaim.

To sum up: 3 in anticipation (I had previously seen Andersson’s “A pigeon sat on a branch reflecting on existence” which left me bemused and not exactly crying out for more) 4 for enjoyment and 5 in retrospect (this time I “go it” and learned to embrace the darkness) Unremitting gloom with frequent patches of despair - Book Early.

0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.

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