About Endlessness (2019)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

About Endlessness (2019) – R. Andersson

If you haven’t seen a Roy Andersson film, you are really missing something – no one else makes movies like he does. Each shot is a set-piece, an anecdote (if you will) or simply a moment drawn from existence. His previous film was called A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014); if this sounds like a Far Side cartoon, then you are not far wrong -- Andersson’s sense of humour is ironic too. These shots are immaculately presented in perfectly designed environments using only muted pastel colours (this film is all white with greys, tans, blues, and greens). The camera is static, taking in the scene, which could be a panoramic landscape or just a room. I think of Jeff Wall’s photographs but Andersson adds movement (within the shot), dialogue, and music (and this time, a narrator who offers a single comment on each scene). The effect of each shot-scene is akin to the detonation of a “thought-bomb” with rippling waves of implications. This film may be about things that never end (such as the emotional states of grief or hurt) or perhaps about endings soon to come (death as the most obvious). This does give the film a dark tone but there are also joyous moments – Andersson is nothing if not an existentialist who wants us to really experience the moments in our lives, the downs as well as the ups, for these are the only things that matter. This film has one key recurring character: a priest who has lost his faith (Andersson is Swedish like Bergman). The priest visits a psychiatrist who tells him that maybe God really doesn’t exist and it would be better just to enjoy his life. This, then, is Andersson’s modus operandi in a nutshell: he offers us the opportunity to observe the poignant, gently ironic, telling, and simply mundane scenes of our shared existence and to reflect on them. And perhaps there is no better time than today, on New Year’s Eve during a pandemic, to contemplate our common humanity, our mutual capacity to experience joy and sorrow, and the perpetual events that cause them to be.