"Songs from the Second Floor" is the first film in Swedish director Roy Anderson's "Life Trilogy", who studied under Bergman. The film presents eerie everyday life with fragmented narrative and scattered characters, and won the Jury Prize at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival. The film features an absurd sense of humor, the aloofness of the Nordics and the impotence of individual behavior. The people in the film have empty eyes and bodies occupied by materialistic desires. Under the torrent of the times, they blame themselves for their troubles. Aimless daze is the norm of the group in the film. The use of deep focus and long shots feels that the passage of time slows down, and the audience quietly experiences the absurd jokes in daily life. Behind the absurd aesthetics lies existential thinking and humanitarian concern.
1. White face makeup becomes the director's unique logo
Director Roy Anderson created a white-faced look by borrowing from circus clowns and Japanese Noh dramas. It can give characters a sense of sculpture, and also allow actors to better represent the "universal public". Most Noh dramas tell the story of the connection between Yin and Yang, breaking the barriers of time and space just like this film. After watching Noh dramas, I usually think about life and death, and life is impermanent. A face can show both happy and sad expressions with just a few tweaks. It seems to combine all the expressions of human beings in one mask, just as real human beings shuttle in the vast crowd with invisible masks.
The white-faced makeup that most of the film's actors use conveys a morbid feel. One by one, the characters were pale, and their expressions were stiff, making it difficult to tell them apart. The absurd and grim white-faced group portraits are a metaphor for the true embodiment of people living in the world with masks under the times. Whether it is the protagonist of the film, a middle-aged man who failed in business, a magician who failed in magic, a son who wrote a poem and was admitted to the hospital, an ignorant girl as a sacrifice, and two patients in a mental hospital who were discussing the quality of Jesus’ humanity ·····They all "stealed their lives for half a day's leisure" by using white noodles. They represent a certain type of person in life. People wear masks and live in the moment cautiously. Under the seemingly peaceful daily life, people's hearts are turbulent.
Director Roy Anderson advocated Bresson's views on performance, believing that "performance without expression is pure nature and closer to reality". The actors in the movie acted dumb, which was deliberately done by the director. In the first scene of "Singing from the Second Floor", the dull-looking Piller carries a briefcase and talks to the boss in the solarium. His eyes flicker between the boss hiding in the solarium and the audience. Peeler conveys to the audience a kind of helplessness, helplessness and ignorance full of survival with his eyes, and seems to be sending us a signal for help. The film establishes a real confrontation between the actor's glasses and the lens, giving the audience a view of God's perspective on those absurd and powerless people and things on the screen, while the people in the play know the existence of the audience and put some kind of prayer in This form of equality is passed on to us. The expressionless performance is in line with the tone of indifference and alienation conveyed by the film, and it also makes the characterization more plump and successful. The characters wander between reality and non-reality, and the helplessness and absurdity are reinforced by the powerlessness conveyed in their eyes.
2. Unique philosophy of time: breaking the barriers of time and space
The whole film "Singing from the Second Floor" uses 46 long shots to tell 24 stories. Almost every scene in Roy Anderson's film is done with a fixed length shot, and only 3 scenes in the film use moving shots. Roy Anderson did not deal with the deep focus lens and the long lens separately, but organically combined the two to show a more complicated scene with the long lens. Director Roy Anderson minimized camera movement and made the most of every scene. The camera was always stationary, and Anderson had to schedule the actors' limited movement depending on the depth of field space. The deep space brought by the deep focus lens conveys more film content to the audience. Breaking the barriers of time and space, reality and non-reality are intertwined to jointly describe the absurd and uninhibited tragicomedy of life in the world.
The deep focus technique not only highlights the sculptural and stage feel of the film, but also maximizes the long shot. The deep focus telephoto first appeared in the "Father of Documentary" Flaherty's "Nanuk of the North". It is not difficult to recall the "landmark" film in the history of film development - "Citizen Kane" directed by Orson Welles. "Wells was careful to use depth of field to eliminate unnecessary narrative editing in film scenes, and to accomplish his vision, Greg Toland developed a deep focus technique for Wells that produced unprecedented depth of field." One of the most impressive shots in Citizen Kane, this is also a typical deep focus shot. Mrs Kane is seen in the foreground signing the agreement and acknowledging Mr Thatcher as little Kane's guardian. In the background, little Kane can be seen playing in the snow through the window. This deep focus technique not only perfects the narrative and complements the plot, but also conveys more information to the audience through the background. Doing so also greatly saves the cost of film production.
At the end of the movie "Singing from the Second Floor", it is unbelievable to see that the soul of the deceased is in the same time and space as the real person. The male protagonist is standing in front of a huge garbage dump. In the middle scene are countless Jesus crosses abandoned by businessmen, and in the background are countless ghosts of unjust deaths. Not only did he see his creditor, the ignorant girl who sacrificed and prayed for blessings, but also the Russian guy who couldn't repay his sister... The resentful spirit in the film lived in a different era, but also suffered the darkest torture in society. Their souls flocked to the fallen and impoverished male protagonist together with strong resentment. Roy Anderson's philosophy of time is to place characters in the universe, crossing the boundaries of time and space, giving it a deeper philosophical idea. The camera always keeps a certain distance from the characters in the shot, and the audience can feel the coldness in the heart of the shots that are alienated from the protagonist. This kind of indifference to the outside world is a common reflection of human nature in today's society, and it is also the normalization of the indifference of human nature that the film wants to convey. Roy Anderson's surrealist style is not difficult to reminiscent of Seymour Bekdo's "Waiting for Godot". No matter what era you are in, the darkness of human nature has never been reduced by half, which is why the director took great pains to want the characters of all ages and the souls of different time and space to be in the same time and space.
Roy Anderson skillfully uses the deep focus and long lens to realize his own time and space philosophy in the film, causing everyone in the film to be involved in the time vortex specially set by Roy Anderson, showing the helplessness and embarrassment of the little people in the emptiness and absurdity . The director wraps the contemplation of life in the film in a consistent mocking style, and raises the film's sense of absurdity to a higher level through the film's icy stage-like pictures and pitiful sarcastic lines.
3. Focus on individual vulnerability and ignorance, and explore existential philosophy
The material life of the people in the developed countries of northern Europe can be seen in the protagonist Piller's potbellied figure, but the human spiritual civilization is constantly being abandoned. When they moved with heavy luggage carts, they disliked them as a burden. People who went to new houses were happy that their material life had taken a new level. It can be seen that the enjoyment of the spiritual level has long been numb in the world of material abundance. Human beliefs and interests are linked, and greed grows unhindered in the heart, forcing beliefs to deviate more and more from the guide of life. The most impressive words in the whole film are the words that the male protagonist said at the end of the film standing beside the garbage on the cross of Jesus: "We work hard only for the food on the table." For the food on the table, we gave up faith. But when you no longer try to survive, can you still remember the spiritual civilization left by human ancestors? The male protagonist is full of thoughts on how to add a zero to the number in his bank account, while his son is immersed in the poetic world of "the man who sits is cute". The film is full of philosophical concerns about existentialism. The author believes that the undisguised ridicule is the director's deep reflection on the value of human existence.
Roy Anderson uses his unique visual language to express the indifference and loneliness among people in this world. The name "Singing from the Second Floor" is actually a great satire on human beings. That song came from the mental hospital, it was the song from Elysium. But no one paid attention. They were all busy fighting for the food on the table. After all, Jesus could not save the greedy humanity. With the use of deep focus techniques, time breaks the barriers of time and space, and reality and non-reality are intertwined, depicting the eternal, absurd and bizarre human nature. The director mocks human nature, but has an attitude of compassion for all beings. The film is full of ridicule, but exudes the brilliance of humanitarianism. This is compassion and care for the fragility of individual existence value, and conveys the emotion and respect for life to the audience from the perspective of human nature.
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