The third part of the cinematic trilogy on human existence that took fifteen years to complete earned its Swedish director Roy Andersson the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival.
Sam and Jonathan are two travelling salesmen peddling novelty items, such as vampire teeth, laughing apparatuses and grotesque party masks. The two do not find their own products particularly amusing, but they do their best to convince others. Sam and Jonathan accompany us through a series of rich and surprising moments: the captain of the ferry abandoned life on the sea and now runs a hair salon, a female flamenco dancer reveals her affections by touching one of her male students, sailors and soldiers have no money and employ kisses as their currency to buy drinks at the Limping Lotta’s pub and an 18th-century army of horses and footmen is spearheaded by King Charles XII. Through his cast of characters, Andersson sarcastically proves the absurdity of human existence in the clutches of Western civilisation.
»I think that the visual portrait of the human being, both in painting and in film, tells us more than words. That is also why I like Beckett – Waiting for Godot for example; it is so trivial, laconic, with these people misunderstanding each other. Yet it is so true. My scenes are supposed to show the misunderstandings and mistakes made by people who meet but do not really connect because they feel pressed for time in their pursuit of what seems important to them. «
- Roy Andersson
Roy Andersson
Born in Gothenburg in 1943. After the successful films A Swedish Love Story and Giliap he began to distance himself from realist conventions. Through making more than 400 commercials he developed his own narrative form, a combination of static shots and absurdist humour. The latter was then applied to a trilogy of films, Songs from the Second Floor, You, the Living and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch.