Sobre a Eternidade

31 vignettes that are a cross between the film Wings of Desire + paintings by Edward Hopper + a thematic apperception test.

The camera doesn't move.

The colour palate is richly muted.

Not a lot happens.

Some scenes are completely banal.

Some are fantasy.

Some tragic.

Still, it's engrossing in its quiet feeling of solitude.

Greetings again from the darkness. A quarter-century once elapsed between feature films for Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson. He only directed a handful of short films between "GILLIAP" (1975) and SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000). Mr. Andersson makes Terrence Malick look prolific. He's certainly not a traditional filmmaker and this latest is not a typical movie. In fact, its highest and best use may be in a graduate Psychology or Philosophy class, so that the mental capacity of students can be stretched and tested to determine whether Andersson is celebrating life or bemoaning our existence.

The narrator begins most segments with something along the lines of: "I saw a man ...", "I saw a woman ...", "I saw parents ...", and "I saw a couple floating ...". These lead us into static one shot vignettes with little or no dialogue. For example, in the first segment, a woman on a park bench concludes with, "It's September already." There is a priest who makes a recurring appearance as one who has lost his faith. In another, parents have lost a son. The emphasis is on the artistic impression and one's own interpretation.

Over the opening, and again later in the film, we see a couple floating over the ruins of Cologne. It's Andersson's take on Chagall's 1918 painting, "Over the Town". Another segment is a recreation of Hitler's bunker in Kukryniksy's 1946 painting, "The End". These are simple, stark, low-key snapshots in time. The color palette seems to be off-gray, and the sun never shines in this world - there's no tanned skin in the bunch. Andersson offers just enough moments of hope/happiness to prevent this from being 80 minutes of full-on depression. We always think he's trying to tell us something, but can't always decipher what the intended message is. Like the best art, it's up to your interpretation, and surely dependent on individual perspective.

Release delayed due to COVID-19.

After watching Roy's other films I was really looking forward to this film - as some fans had said it was his best film ever. I set myself up for a treat. But I was let down. Yes, the art direction and acting are absolutely superb. But the stories didn't work for me. I was bored.

"About Endlessness" is a feature length collection of long static camera shots, each capturing a moment in the life of a human being. Some of the moments are mundane, some are disturbing, some are funny, many are melancholy. I was game to engage with the film's experimental approach for awhile -- it's like going to an art museum and having the paintings you're looking at come alive within their frames. But the concept eventually gets a bit monotonous and the film over stays its welcome by a good fifteen minutes or so. The compositions look absolutely gorgeous, though, even when what's on the screen is nothing but a simple, bare room.

Grade: B.

Yes. We know Anderson and his style by heart. Yes, we love him with all our heart!

But... I was a bit de-mystified by the fact that in this (potentially very meta-physical) story-composition there was MANY TIMES a voice over telling us what we just saw on our own. Chances are I truly missed the point of this, but after few minutes I felt truly annoyed by it... "yes I see myself a man with a problem that is xy" I thought many times. Was this the point?

Overall, apart from the seemingly unnecessary narrator, some of the scenes were "too light" for my taste, but I guess taste is just taste. Young people, dancing in sunlight; young people staring at each other. More profanity without the dark, underlying melancholy. Most of his other scenes in older movies feature also way more "mystical" (unexplained/riddled) situations, might they be more absurd, more surreal, more melancholic, more dramatic. Many scenes in this film felt quite "un-dramatic"... but again, maybe this was his point, finally giving us more light, more normal situations, more insight into happiness?

Apart from this point ( that I maybe didn't get): loved the absurdity, some of the actors, most of the sets (splendid as ALWAYS), the groteque, the paintinglike style, the "Andersonesque" techniques to tell a story.

Maybe one of you "unlocked" the solution to this film's mystery?