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About Endlessness
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Wikipedia article
'About Endlessness' is a 2019 Swedish drama film directed by Roy Andersson. It was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 76th Venice International Film Festival. At the Venice Film Festival, the film won the Silver Lion for Best Direction.
Summary
The film consists of a series of vignettes that are often narrated to provide further context. The vignettes are shown in the following order.
# A man and woman sit on a park bench overlooking a nearby city with a flock of geese flying by, the woman commenting that its September.
# A man breaks the fourth wall to tell the audience of an encounter he had with a former classmate, Sverker Olsson, whom he wronged in the past. He tries to greet Sverker but is ignored.
# A waiter at a fancy restaurant absentmindedly overflows his customers glass, spilling onto the table.
# A woman, described by the narrator as incapable of feeling shame, turns and looks back at the camera with an annoyed expression.
# A man checks inside of his mattress for his life savings that he keeps there, as he does not trust banks.
# A priest (who is featured prominently throughout the film) has a vivid nightmare of being crucified, and his wife helps to calm him down to go back to sleep.
# As a barbershop employee waters a tree outside, a young lovelorn man watches her from a distance until she returns inside.
# The priest visits Dr. Lindh, who dismisses his dreams as simple nightmares. The priest expresses his ever-growing doubt about God, and the doctor suggests that God does not exist. He tells the priest to meet him next week.
# A man at a subway station watches a legless, mandolin-playing busker.
# A man plays with his infant child outside a building as his wife watches and the childs grandmother takes pictures.
# The priest, still troubled over his recurring nightmares, gets drunk on communion wine and asks God why he has been forsaken. He stumbles back to his congregation.
# Two parents leave flowers on the grave of their son, who died in a war.
# Two lovers float over the ruins of a once-prosperous, beautiful city.
# A young woman gets off at a train station and finds nobody waiting for her. Her husband then hurriedly arrives and helps take her luggage as they leave.
# A man takes a younger woman (and connoisseur of champagne) on a date.
# A woman sits alone at a diner as a man carrying flowers enters and asks if her name is Lisa Larsson. She tells him it isnt as her husband returns with two beers. The man slowly and awkwardly leaves.
# A captured soldier is tied to a post by the enemy army, despite his desperate pleas. He is then left alone.
# Three young women pass by a cafe playing 'Tre Trallande Jntor' by The Delta Rhythm Boys. The three dance to the song in front of the cafes customers, entertaining them.
# A woman at a train station with her baby breaks the heels of her shoes, forcing her to place them underneath her babys stroller and continue on.
# A man cradles his murdered daughters corpse. The narrator says he wanted to protect his familys honor, but now feels sorry about it.
# A jealous husband confronts his wife at an open market, accusing her of having an affair. As he begins slapping her, several bystanders attempt to restrain him and get him to calm down. The man claims that he loves her, and she says she knows.
# A young man discusses the first law of thermodynamics about how all matter and energy can never be destroyed, only changed, and that because of it, everyones energies are never-ending.
# The next vignette depicts Adolf Hitler returning to his bunker upon his military's imminent defeat at the hands of the Allied forces above him.
# The priest openly weeps on a crowded bus, lamenting that he doesnt know what he wants. One passenger mocks his public display of emotion. Unbeknownst to the other passengers, Martin Bormann from the previous segment, is on the bus.
# A man and his young daughter stop on their way to a birthday party so he can tie her shoes while in the pouring rain.
# The priest confronts Dr. Lindh at his clinic at closing time. He repeatedly begs the doctor and his assistant to help him find purpose after losing his faith, but they turn him down and eject him from their office, where he waits and continues to cry for their help.
# A dentist sees a patient about a toothache. When the patient rejects anesthesia due to his hatred of needles, the dentist attempts to work on the tooth regardless. The patients repeated yells of pain prompt the doctor to leave, fed up. The dentist's assistant claims that the dentist has anger issues.
# The dentist has a drink at a nearby bar where a patron is declaring that everything is fantastic.
# An army defeated and then captured is being marched to a prison camp in Siberia.
# The man from the second vignette recounts a second identical encounter that he had with Sverker. He also learns that, despite lackluster grades at school, Sverker managed to get his PhD degree, making the man reflect on how little he has accomplished. His wife reminds him of their many travels together, but he continues to dwell on Sverkers successes.
# A mans car breaks down on a country road, and he attempts to fix it himself with little success.
Cast
* Conny Block as Sverker Ohlsson
* Jessica Louthander as The Narrator
* Martin Serner as The Priest
* Lesley Leichtweis Bernardi as The lady in the train station
* Ania Nova (as Anna Sedunova) as The girl on the train
* Tatiana Delaunay as The Flying Woman
* Anders Hellstrm as The Flying Man
* Magnus Wallgren as Adolf Hitler
* Pablo Fernandez-Moreno as The Man who has killed his daughter
* Bengt Bergius as Psychiatrist
* Karin Engman as The Mother
* Roger Hanning as Martin Bormann
* Jan-Eje Ferling as The Man in the Stairs
* Thore Flygel as The Dentist
* Anton Forsdik as Sibling 1
* Fanny Forsdik as Sibling 2
* Amanda Davies as Student
Reception
'About Endlessness' received positive reviews from critics. , of the reviews compiled on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, with an average rating of . The site's critical consensus reads, "'About Endlessness' sees writer-director Roy Andersson surveying the human condition with equal parts striking clarity, tenderness, and deadpan existential wit." On Metacritic, it has an average score of 87/100, based on thirty critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
References
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