Om det oändliga / About Endlessness / Über die Unendlichkeit

A couple sits in a park overlooking a city. Suddenly the woman says, "It's already September" – a seemingly banal scene about our mortality. The title of Roy Andersson's last film could stand for his entire oeuvre. Andersson explores the nature of humanity – and its pitfalls – in short laconic scenes and in endless variations. Here again, he works with long static shots, and the world seems strangely faded. Here again, people do what this director always has them do: wait, brood, love, wage wars, and say nothing to each other. A woman in a bar enjoys her Champagne so much that she forgets her companion. An exhausted-looking priest finishes off the sacramental wine. "You have abandoned me!" he moans. We wonder who he means – God, or the wine? The documentary film "Being a Human Person" (2020) by Fred Scott, which can be seen in the programme accompanying the homage, documents the process of shooting "About Endlessness".