One word for this movie is: insane and poetic. I have never seen such an astounding movie. Songs from the Second Floor is a Swedish surrealist film written and directed by Roy Andersson. Set in present-day Stockholm, the movie does not follow the traditional way. Human misery, chaos and suffering are shown in an ultimate perfection. Lasse is seen dragging his boss away, holding onto his leg, to a void of misery and asphyxiation. In another scene, immigrants are beaten by strangers on the road, showing us a disgruntled human's bad-end to another human, meaning we have lost our senses and can no longer judge anything. You can feel the void, the eerie behind the human motives. The bunch of silent onlookers have no mercy - that is us! That is us! And that scream, that is ours too - screaming souls!

Image: IMDB

In a subsequent scene, the magician suddenly does something wrong with his magic. We are intentionally stuffed into the world of chaotic phenomenon - that old chap is us; another of us, screaming in deadly cut. We love to suffer. Endurance and despair are our fate, like the magician's. His face and silence show us our blinded faith. He is just thinking after his deed - he is asking himself, thinking deeply - how did this happen? How have I failed myself? People are singing for our misery, our fate, for our unsuccessful life. Our surroundings are laughing at us. "It's not easy being human," one of the misfortune characters says. One of the women wants to know and asks, "Does anyone know how to get out of here?" Yes, everyone wants to get out of here, from this doomed land of agony, don't we? The answer was simple yet heartbreaking - "No". We are all doomed, with no way to escape our inevitable fate. We have no way to kill our minotaur, no way out of this labyrinth of suffering.

Every other scene starts with complete existential silence. We can just hear the echo of eerie moments. You can get enough time to delve into that unconsciousness and choking minutes. The city looks quiet, apocalyptic, gray, and meaningless! Every scene is frozen and the characters are looking at absurdity. Everyone is looking for hope, and a way out from their calamity and irrationality. People went mad writing poetry, trying to find solace in words. In one scene, Kalle is seen dumping the crucified god in a landfill, believing that in the moment of tragedy, God is helpless too. Yet, despite all this, we are unable to help ourselves. We are left with our own thoughts, and darkness, and inescapable sorrow. We have no way to escape the fate that is ours.