Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Director
Roy Andersson
Main cast
Lars Nordh; Stefan Larsson; Bengt C.W. Carlsson; Torbjörn Fahlström; Sten Andersson
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Description
A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.
Roy Andersson
Main cast
Lars Nordh; Stefan Larsson; Bengt C.W. Carlsson; Torbjörn Fahlström; Sten Andersson
Genres
Comedy, Drama
Description
A film poem inspired by the Peruvian poet César Vallejo. A story about our need for love, our confusion, greatness and smallness and, most of all, our vulnerability. It is a story with many characters, among them a father and his mistress, his youngest son and his girlfriend. It is a film about big lies, abandonment and the eternal longing for companionship and confirmation.
Similar movies
Simple Italian postman learns to love poetry while delivering mail to a famous poet; he uses this to woo local beauty Beatrice.
Sean Connery attempted to make a clean break from his "James Bond" image in the boisterous comedy A Fine Madness. Connery plays Samson Shillitoe, a Brendan Behan-like poet with a mile-wide misogynistic streak. Try as he might to complete his latest masterpiece, Shillitoe is constantly interrupted by the women in his life. Driven to a nervous breakdown, he seeks help from the medical establishment -- and ends up a babbling shell of his former self. The film takes scattered potshots at a repressive society that forces the truly creative among us into near-madness; at times, it is sidesplittingly funny, though never quite as potent as the Elliot Baker novel upon which it is based. Sean Connery is brilliant, but the public wanted James Bond to behave himself, thus the film didn't do as well at the box office as it should have.
Embarrassed by his large nose, a romantic poet/soldier romances his cousin by proxy.
Beat Takeshi lives the busy and sometimes surreal life of a showbiz celebrity. One day he meets his blond lookalike named Kitano, a shy convenience store cashier, who, still an unknown actor, is waiting for his big break. After their paths cross, Kitano seems to begin hallucinating about becoming Beat.
In the Swedish city of Lethe, people from different walks of life take part in a series of short, deadpan vignettes that rush past. Some are just seconds long, none longer than a couple of minutes. A young woman (Jessica Lundberg) remembers a fantasy honeymoon with a rock guitarist. A man awakes from a dream about bomber planes. A businessman boasts about success while being robbed by a pickpocket and so on. The absurdist collection is accompanied by Dixieland jazz and similar music.
An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on manâs perpetual inhumanity to man.
Love and injury in time of war. Attilio de Giovanni teaches poetry in Italy. He has a romantic soul, and women love him. But he is in love with Vittoria, and the love is unrequited. Every night he dreams of marrying her, in his boxer shorts and t-shirt, as Tom Waits sings. Vittoria travels to Iraq with her friend, Fuad, a poet; they are there with the second Gulf War breaks out. Vittoria is injured. Attilio must get to her side, and then, as war rages around him, he must find her the medical care she needs. In war, does love conquer all?
Multi-storied, fish-eyed look at American culture with some 22 characters intersecting--profoundly or fleetingly--through each other's lives. Running the emotional gamut from disturbing to humorous, Altman's portrait of the contemporary human condition is nevertheless fascinating. Based on nine stories and a prose poem by Raymond Carver.
Amy and David are two underachievers from suburbia. Amy has had a rough life raised by her neglectful drug addicted single mother. David has been raised in a more conventional family, but his lack of motivation has driven his father crazy. When Amy meets David it seems they both find what they are looking for. But when Amy gets pregnant, both Amy and David go through a personal and surreal crisis in making choices. Which leads them to decide if they should do it the right way or the wrong way?
Phometrica tells the story of a couple, Stefania (Joanna Ignaczewska) and Jose (Tom Woodward). When Stefania falls pregnant, Jose becomes suspicious about the nature of the clearing work she's undertaking to help support the family. Paranoid that she's keeping something from him, he follows her. However, rather than reveal Stefania's secrets, Jose steps into his own nightmares and finds himself exploring his own guilt. Meanwhile as Stefania seeks to pull their life into some kind of order, the couple find themselves separated by the growing chaos, and are unable to escape their hopeless indulgence in their own suffering. Featuring Arthur Brown as cult leader Deacon Tavalouris, the film plays out in a series of fractured sketches that range from the comedic to the surreal.
Buenos Aires movie director, very fond of the legend of the King of Patagonia and Araucania, decides to make a movie about it. Despite of financial troubles, technical problems, misfortune and desertions, he undertakes the journey to Patagonia for the film with a second-rate actor company. Neglected by the producer and shortly after by the company, he will make the movie alone, in a surreal landscape like mad.
Darius Lovehall is a young black poet in Chicago who starts dating Nina Moseley, a beautiful and talented photographer. While trying to figure out if they've got a "love thing" or are just "kicking it," they hang out with their friend, talking about love and sex. Then Nina tests the strength of Darius' feelings and sets a chain of romantic complications into motion.
A story about a simple man from the mountains, Guaguasi, who falls in love with a beautiful chorus girl, Marina, during the Cuban Revolution. Guaguasi joins the rebels and arrives in Havana at the end of Batista's dictatorship, and, in the midst of political turmoil, is swept off his feet by the mesmerising Marina. The story celebrates the vitality and lunacy of the Revolution period with surrealism, humor and sensuality and is a compassionate metaphor about the human condition.
Between surrealism, unusual characters, art and magic tricks, Swim Little Fish Swim is a dreamlike journey from childhood to adulthood.
During the Battle of the Bulge, an anachronistic count shelters a ragtag squad of Americans in his isolated castle hoping they will defend it against the advancing Germans.
An "underground" cartoonist contends with life in the inner city, where various unsavory characters serve as inspiration for his artwork.
The first of what Luis Buñuel later proclaimed a trilogy (along with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and The Phantom of Liberty) about âthe search for truth,â The Milky Way (La voie lactee) daringly deconstructs contemporary and traditional views on Catholicism with ribald, rambunctious surreality. Two French beggars, present-day pilgrims en route to Spainâs holy city of Santiago de Compostela, serve as Buñuelâs narrators for an anticlerical history of heresy, told with absurdity and filled with images that rank among Buñuelâs most memorable (stigmatic children, crucified nuns) and hilarious (Jesus considering a good shave). A diabolically entertaining look at the mysteries of fanaticism, The Milky Way remains a hotly debated work from cinemaâs greatest skeptic.
Young and disenchanted Sam meets a mysterious and beautiful woman who's swimming in his building's pool one night. When she suddenly vanishes the next morning, Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles to decode the secret behind her disappearance, leading him into the murkiest depths of mystery, scandal and conspiracy.
In the 21st century Bucharest to get out in the city on Saturday evening at the arm of a beautiful woman is a financial investment risky. Ovidiu, unassuming high school teacher, never could afford. Looking for a source of income to something more substantial than a teacher salary, Ovidiu plunge into a fabulous world - beggars mob.
The story of a middle-aged bookshop owner, who becomes embroiled in a surreal swirl of romance and family secrets of infidelity, her energy levels registering in bursts of electrical interference - causing lightbulbs, traffic lights, toasters and computers to spontaneously spark and malfunction.
A coming of age story about a shy teenage boy trying to escape from the influence of his domineering mother. His world changes when he begins to work for a retired actress.
This drama centers on Hank Chinaski, the fictional alter-ego of "Factotum" author Charles Bukowski, who wanders around Los Angeles, CA trying to live off jobs which don't interfere with his primary interest, which is writing. Along the way, he fends off the distractions offered by women, drinking and gambling.
A year in the life of a small Italian coastal town in the nineteen-thirties, as is recalled by a director with a superstar's access to the resources of the Italian film industry and a piper's command over our imaginations.
Set in the present in Paterson, New Jersey, this is a tale about a bus driver and poet.
The bizarre story of Elliot "White Lightning" Scott, who plans on becoming Canada's first action hero with his low-budget karate epic, Blood Fight. This surreal documentary captures two years in the lives of a passionate amateur filmmaker, his supportive partner Linda Lum, and their cast and crew of outrageous dreamers - all striving to achieve success.
Gordon Comstock is a copywriter at an ad agency, and his girlfriend Rosemary is a designer. Gordon believes he is a genius, a marvelous poet and quits the ad agency, trying to live on his poems, but poverty soon comes to him.
An art instructor and an English teacher form a rivalry that ends up with a competition at their school in which students decide whether words or pictures are more important.
Though a childhood bout with polio left him dependent on an iron lung, Mark O'Brien (John Hawkes) maintains a career as a journalist and poet. A writing assignment dealing with sex and the disabled piques Mark's curiosity, and he decides to investigate the possibility of experiencing sex himself. When his overtures toward a caregiver scare her away, he books an appointment with sex surrogate Cheryl Green (Helen Hunt) to lose his virginity.
A young man is hired as the executioner at a prison where his brother sits on death row. Things get more surreal when he falls in love with his brother's ex-girlfriend -- who's imprisoned herself.
Middle-aged cinephile and film projectionist Pera still lives with his mother - and best friend - Mara, in Belgrade. It's 1999 and when NATO bombs start raining down on Serbia, the two of them become refugees. After a surreal journey, they end up in New York, where Pera realizes that he can no longer do the old job he loved so much. While he and Mara were struggling to survive, the new age of digital projection was born. Then Pera stumbles upon some discarded projectors and his new mission in life becomes clear: he will travel around and show people the magic of Real Cinema - the magic that can only be created by celluoid, mechanical projectors, the silver screen and flickering light.
An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.
Lillian is a 21-year-old drifter engaged to a philandering loser and locked in her room with a strange man. She lives next to a failed violinist who won't stop playing his instrument. He lives next to a New Age fanatic who's into colonic treatments; she lives next to two drug addicts who mess with the wrong prostitutes and end up answering to a pimp named Mr. Tangerine. In a barrage of head-spinning vignettes, we are sucked into a surreal motel fantasy-land where society's riffraff dwell in that awkward place between freedom and desperation.
A surreal comedy depicting a diverse cast of characters and the changes they undergo as the German tourist Jasmin interacts with each of them at a remote truck stop in the middle of the Mojave desert.
It's Halloween and Tru Holliwood is having a party, but nothing is what it seems as murder, musical numbers, nightmares, and a Fairy Godmother become part of Tru's surreal celebration.
Arya (Allu Arjun) is a happy-go-lucky, college-going youth with an attitude. He falls in love with Geeta (Anuradha Mehta) at first sight. He proposes to her in front of her boyfriend Siva. She bluntly refuses. The theme of the film is Arya's philosophy in life--one way love. While he keeps extolling and spreading the virtues of his philosophy, he also teases Geeta's boyfriend at every available opportunity about why he should fee threatened by Arya's one-sided attempts to woo the uninterested Geeta, if Siva so strongly believes in the bond of true love between them. What follows is a comic roller coaster. The rest of the film is all about how Arya wins Geeta with his positive outlook.
Two professional con artist sisters go on the run and assume the identities of The Wilding Sisters, guest stars of a poetry retreat in the depths of the Black Mountains. A romantic comedy drama about love, crime, spirituality, and soul
Newly single, 35, and uninspired by his job, Jesse Fisher worries that his best days are behind him. But no matter how much he buries his head in a book, life keeps pulling Jesse back. When his favorite college professor invites him to campus to speak at his retirement dinner, Jesse jumps at the chance. He is prepared for the nostalgia of the dining halls and dorm rooms, the parties and poetry seminars; what he doesnât see coming is Zibby â a beautiful, precocious, classical-music-loving sophomore. Zibby awakens scary, exciting, long-dormant feelings of possibility and connection that Jesse thought he had buried forever.
THE ACID HOUSE is a surreal triptych adapted by "Trainspotting" author Irvine Welsh from his acclaimed collection of short stories.
Combining a vicious sense of humor with hard-talking drama, the film reaches into the hearts and minds of the chemical generation, casting a dark and unholy light into the hidden corners of the human psyche.
Directed by Paul McGuigan, the film dramatises three stories from the book: 1- The Granton Star Cause, 2- A Soft Touch & 3- The Acid House.
While visiting her sister in Paris, a young woman finds romance and learns her brother-in-law is a philanderer.
When his mother, who has sheltered him his entire 40 years, dies, Elling, a sensitive, would-be poet, is sent to live in a state institution. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and female-obsessed virgin in his 40s. After two years, the men are released and provided with a state-funded apartment and stipend with the hope they will be able to live on their own.
This fast-paced black comedy by wunderkind director Rainer Werner Fassbinder follows the frantic efforts of a starving and confused writer, Walter Kranz to beg, borrow or steal enough money to survive on, and at the same time make some sense of his confusing life. Unable to write enough to keep his publisher's royalty advances coming, he seeks out a woman he imagines is a prostitute and interviews her for material. He is also inspired to utter some poetry, which his brassy, outspoken wife identifies as coming from the famous homosexuality-advocating mystical German poet, Stefan George. This inspires Walter to take a closer look at the gay scene, and he quickly becomes a sort of celebrity there.
The life of Danny Wright, a salesman forever on the road, veers into dangerous and surreal territory when he wanders into a Mexican bar and meets a mysterious stranger, Julian, who's very likely a hit man. Their meeting sets off a chain of events that will change their lives forever, as Wright is suddenly thrust into a far-from-mundane existence that he takes to surprisingly well ⦠once he gets acclimated to it.
Amy, a naive college graduate who believes she's destined to be a great poet, begrudgingly accepts a job at a sex shop while she pursues a mentorship with reclusive writer Rat Billings.
A ten year old boy gets tired of life with abusive parents and cashes in his piggy bank and steals a Mustang. He rides off into a surreal America playing "Motorama," a game sponsored by Chimera Gas Company. He has various encounters with different people, and eventually reaches the Chimera Gas Company where he finds they are not playing by the rules of the game.
A magician who has been turned into a raven turns to a former sorcerer for help in this film loosely based on the Edgar Allen Poe poem.
A group of stoners inhale more than they bargained for when they smoke from an evil bong in this campy comedy. The guys buy a vintage bong named EeBee from an ad in High Times magazine, but they have no idea the possessed pipe will gradually suck them into a horrifying surreal world. As they fight for their lives, EeBee's former owner (none other than Tommy Chong) -- the only one who understands the power of the bong -- tries to rescue them.
A gang of bank robbers with a suitcase full of money go to the desert to hide out. After burying the loot, they find their way to a surreal town full of cowboys who drink an awful lot of coffee.
A comedy writer's need for approval leads him to a wonder elixir that bends his world into a surreal landscape of comedy tropes, which forces him to explore his own worth outside the writer's room.
The poet and Lillemor have become parents, but poetry and washing the diapers are two subjects which are hard to unite under the same roof. The two just married couples, the barber Anton and Vera plus the baker and Lise, are having some difficulties with their marriages but that doesn't scare off the butcher, who's got the hots for the midwife.
Superfantozzi (1986) is an Italian film from 1986. It is the fifth film in the saga of the unlucky clerk Ugo Fantozzi, played by its creator, Paolo Villaggio. In this film, Fantozzi is portrayed in a surreal historical journey, from Genesis to 1980s.
Just after a bad breakup, Charlie MacKenzie falls for lovely butcher Harriet Michaels and introduces her to his parents. But, as voracious consumers of sensational tabloids, his parents soon come to suspect that Harriet is actually a notorious serial killer -- "Mrs. X" -- wanted in connection with a string of bizarre honeymoon killings. Thinking his parents foolish, Charlie proposes to Harriet. But while on his honeymoon with her, he begins to fear they were right.
Goran Markovic, known more for his dramatic work, achieved something that's eluded many great filmmakers - both smart and funny comedy. Based loosely on his own life as a kid growing up in Tito's communist Yugoslavia in the 1950s, the movie centers around 10-year-old Zoran whose inspired poem about Tito written on a spur-of-the-moment-basis as an in-class assignment, earns him a trip with other deserving pupils retracing Tito's "revolutionary trails" in Tito's hometown of Kumrovec.
Sheer brilliance. Billy Connolly's razor-sharp mixture of bewildered surrealism and ultra-perceptive observational comedy is showcased here. If you're not pained with laughter at the routines on football, swimming and cookbooks, something vital has been removed from your brain. Buy it - it's better therapy than the stuff you get in clinics.
Force Majeure (French) (pronounced: fors mah-ZHur), "superior force", "chance occurrence, unavoidable accident": 2 years and 27 countries, Force Majeure Live was filmed during Eddie's mammoth 2013/2014 tour and takes you on a truly hilarious journey, offering a rare glimpse in to the mind of the master of surrealism.
They sing, Rise, all living corpses, forget the prolonged time of chaos, drag the long shadow of curse and haunt all boring souls. A concourse where three streets meet, where everyone wants to come at least once in their lives. These ghosts work as concourse staff of a theater, where three streets meet during the day and at night, and throw a fantastic feast of dance and songs as ghosts. Midnight Ballad for Ghost Theater starts somewhat like Jim Sharmanâs Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, as it travels through the history, this cult-like movie reveals the changing theater culture and dark shadow the past casts over the present. At the same time, it ventures into an odd time and space that combines Jean Cocteau-style surrealism, nightmare of Dr. Caligari and images that are often found in documentaries. Our Alice, who journeys through this wonderland of Lewis Carroll, is a girl named Sodan.
Filmed at London's Gielgud Theatre at the culmination of his 1998 tour, Jack Dee Live and Uncut puts the UK's favourite "whinger" in his element--on a stage performing stand-up comedy. Dee has presence in his orange shirt and tailored blue suit, but although he's derogatory about himself--he's a stay-at-home man, he's short, he's fat--he's also unapologetic. Dee isn't afraid to throw harsh words at his audience or swear like the proverbial navvy along with an onslaught of observational humour. He doesn't go in for surrealism, one-liners or complex structural payoffs. He prefers to tackle one subject at a time, explore it, then move on. His themes are universal rather than original but he usually brings a fresh perspective. Take builders⦠he puts himself at the centre of their Neanderthal attentions rather than women.
An action epic that explores the origins of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force (better known as Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad,) who somehow become pitted in a battle over an immortal piece of exercise equipment.
Playboy Andy Mason, on leave from the army, romances showgirl Edie Allen overnight to such effect that she's starry-eyed when he leaves next morning for active duty in the Pacific. Only trouble is, he gave her the assumed name of Casey. Andy's eventual return with a medal is celebrated by his rich father with a benefit show featuring Eadie's show troupe, at which she's sure to learn his true identity...and meet Vivian, his 'family-arrangement' fiancée. Mostly song and dance.
The Stranger, a tall striking creature dressed in white sets into motions a series of events whilst reciting the Edgar Allen Poe Poem "Eldorado", which will have an effect on those heading towards the mythical city.
A highly stylized surreal farce about the events leading up to Custer's Last Stand anachronistically reenacted in an urban renewal area in modern Paris.
Director Mario Fererri reenacts the events leading up to the Battle of the Little Big Horn in this wild, highly stylized surreal farce set in and around a gaping excavation for a huge urban renewal project in 1974 Paris. The anachronistic backdrop highlights the incongruity of the broad comic characterizations of real life figures George Armstrong Custer, Sitting Bull, and Buffalo Bill.
© Valossa 2015–2024