Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15077 in VHS
• Released on: 2001-07-09
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: PAL, Subtitled
• Original language: Swedish
• Number of tapes: 1
• Running time: 99 minutes

Synopsis
A man who is attempting to set alight his own furniture store realises just how difficult it is to survive these days as a number of strange events take place in his own town. Swedish dialogue.

Customer Reviews

SURREAL FUN OF THE PAINFUL REALITY
For anyone that may remember the Biff Cards and comics created by Chris Garratt and Mick Kidd, back in the 80s and 90s, this film will feel like a natural progression but on celluloid. It questions what it perceives as the pointlessness of some of our western ways.

There is no stereotypical narrative to the film. However out of around a half a dozen short "stories" that we follow, the main one is of a middle age man that burns down his business in order to get the insurance money for it. His relationship with wife and other related characters (the insurance representative) are also touched. There is another character, also a middle age man that just struggles throughout the film with just about anything or anyone he gets in touch with. After all, this story uses short episodes, that are seemingly unconnected, in order to bring us to that painful realisation that we go about doing things in life, without knowing why we do them, and not understanding that they do not bring us joy and relief from suffering.

The film's deliberately anaemic colours, bizarre lighting that creates almost no shadows - as even the Sun has decided to give up on us - make for bleak daylight images of an almost post apocalyptic world but with buildings and people intact. The static camera work and deliberately theatrical acting only emphasise this.

However it is all shown through a prism of subtle sarcasm and in a way, where many people will find this to be unusually funny and heart warming, particularly in the startling last two scenes of the film. But be warned - this is NOT a comedy. It is surreal and, while being darkly comical, it somehow never lets you out of its overtly pessimistic grip.

Paradoxically however Songs ... is nothing short of a cinematic equivalent of a very efficient anti depressant and deserves - for its originality and that Nordic wit - full five stars. As it happens, the UK distributors deprive us of this film, making the brilliant New Yorker Video R1 the only edition of it on DVD with English subtitles. It has a ton of extra features and it is worth every penny of what it USED to cost, around £10.00 - that is if you can purchase it from the American Amazon. Some sellers that on this Amazon are asking £30 or more are possibly ripping people off, assuming that it is rare and that it may have already achieved the cult classic status. In my opinion however - it already IS one of those.

Really wonderful and really, really slow artmovie
Songs from the second floor is the story of a middelaged man, told in a very unique style. Everything is slow. Everything is strange. The camera only moves in one (1!) shot during the movie, and every shot is unusually long. Ther's only some 35 or 40 different scenes in the movie.

If you're looking for Hollywood, famous actors and lots of action, you're looking the wrong place - but if you're looking for a fascinating artmovie, this is it!

Enjoyable slow-mover
A canny look at the mind-set of two middle-aged men struggling to 'get their head around life'. Enjoyable, if grindingly slow at times, it does produce a few good chuckles if you're in the mood to just pass a couple of hours on some subtlety, but i'd avoid it if you're in the mood to view some passionate fireworks. Definately worth a viewing in any case.