About infinity

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Movie
German title About infinity
Original title Om det oändliga
Country of production Sweden , Germany , Norway
original language Swedish
Publishing year 2019
length 76 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Roy Andersson
script Roy Andersson
production Pernilla Sandström
camera Gergely Pálos
cut Johan Carlsson,
Kalle Boman,
Roy Andersson
occupation

About Infinity (Swedish original title Om det oändliga ) is a film drama by Roy Andersson that celebrated its world premiere on September 3, 2019 in the competition of the Venice Film Festival and is due to hit German cinemas on September 17, 2020. The stories in the film are loosely inspired by the fairy tales from the Arabian Nights.

action

A fairy voice tells of everyday events in the lives of different people, similar to the narrator Scheherazade . There is a girl who takes the hand of the boy she loves for the first time, a father who ties his daughter's shoelaces in the pouring rain, another father who holds his dead son in his arms, and a crippled war veteran who sitting by the roadside. A middle-aged Catholic priest learns that he has lost his faith. For the first time, he does not seek advice from God but consults a psychiatrist. In his last days, Adolf Hitler enters his narrow bunker and is greeted by his remaining colleagues with a tired "Sieg Heil", while the defeated German troops march in proper formation into a POW camp. A father commits an honor killing on his daughter.

production

The film is a Swedish-German-Norwegian production. Pernilla Sandström acted as producer. The film was co-produced by 4½ Fiksjon AS and Essential Films in collaboration with Société Parisienne de Production, Sveriges Television AB, ARTE France Cinéma, ZDF, Film Capital and the Stockholm Fund. Directed by Roy Andersson , who was inspired in his work by the stories from the Arabian Nights . Another inspiration for the background of his cinematic genre pictures is the Swedish functionalism of the 1950s, with its cold, faceless, pompous architecture, in which the people seemed lost and acted as if they were in front of a theater backdrop. Andersson was also inspired by painting, such as Neue Sachlichkeit and Otto Dix , also by Edward Hopper and Marc Chagall , such as his Über der Stadt for the opening sequence with the lovers floating over the ruins of the war. Andersson describes the main theme of the film as "human vulnerability", and he stated that he wanted to "emphasize the beauty of life" and that is precisely why he wanted to show "cruel and sad scenes in life".

The film received production funding of 100,000 euros each from the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and 1.3 million euros from the Swedish Film Institute. Another funding was granted by the Nordisk Film & TV Fund.

The shooting took place from January 2 to October 31, 2017. Gergely Pálos , with whom Anderson had already worked together for his film A Dove Sitting on a Branch and Thinking About Life , acted as cameraman .

Andersson presented the first scenes from the film in February 2018. The film premiered on September 3, 2019 in the competition at the Venice Film Festival , where it competed for the Golden Lion . The first trailer was released shortly before. In September 2019 the film was shown in the Masters section at the Toronto International Film Festival . In October 2019 it celebrated its German premiere at the Film Festival Cologne and its Austrian premiere at the Viennale . The film is slated for US cinemas later this year. A theatrical release in Austria was announced for March 13, 2020. In mid-September 2020, it will be presented at the Leipzig Film Art Fair and will hit German cinemas on September 17, 2020, after the start date originally announced for March 2020 has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic . International sales are handled by the coproduction office.

reception

Reviews

The film was able to convince 95 percent of all Rotten Tomatoes critics and received an average rating of 7.9 out of a possible 10 points.

Doris Senn from Filmbulletin explains in her review that the sometimes grotesque, historical and also current events mostly remain «loose», and only a few of the vignettes form a continuous narrative: "Despite their fragmentary nature, the small plot units cast a spell over us - not least because of them the repeatedly surprising settings, the sophisticated images and the amazing twists and turns. They create a kind of timelessness that resonates. " The reflection of essence and being that began in Roy Andersson's films Songs from the Second Floor , You, the Living and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence is a great continuation in About Endlessness , and the film seems like a series of images and partly disturbing stories that made us pause to look at things from a distance and that sometimes confront us with essential questions of existence.

Michael Meyns from the Gilde deutscher Filmkunsttheater writes that the film is characterized by a narrative style that is almost completely free of classical narration. Instead of telling a story, Roy Andersson showed short vignettes that loosely revolved around topics, between which connections could sometimes be made, that opened up spaces of association, sometimes quoted art and film history , but above all allowed the viewer to reflect on what was happening close.

Awards

The film was in a shortlist for the European Film Awards 2019 . Further awards and nominations follow.

Guldbagge 2020

European Film Award 2019

Film Festival Cologne 2019

Venice International Film Festival 2019

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jordan Raup: First Look at Roy Andersson's 'About Endlessness'. In: thefilmstage.com, February 14, 2018.
  2. ↑ https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/about-endlessness-review-1203321319/
  3. ↑ a b https://cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/377551
  4. ↑ Hannah Woodhead and Adam Woodward: 25 films we'd like to see at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. In: lwlies.com, March 2, 2019.
  5. ↑ https://www.moviepilot.de/movies/about-endlessness
  6. ↑ Doris Senn: About endlessness. In: Filmbulletin, print edition 2/2020, March 12, 2020.
  7. ↑ https://www.firstshowing.net/2019/first-trailer-for-roy-anderssons-about-endlessness-premiering-in-venice/
  8. ^ Film Festival Cologne: Festival program. In: filmfestival.cologne. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  9. ↑ https://www.uncut.at/movies/film.php?movie_id=13732
  10. ↑ The films of the 20th Film Art Fair 2020. In: filmkunstmesse.de. Retrieved August 22, 2020 (PDF; 426 KB)
  11. ↑ Start dates Germany In: insidekino.com. Retrieved September 21, 2019.
  12. ↑ About infinity. In: Neue Visionen Filmverleih. Retrieved March 13, 2020 .
  13. ↑ About Endlessness. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  14. ↑ Doris Senn: About endlessness. In: Filmbulletin, print edition 2/2020, March 12, 2020.
  15. ↑ About infinity. In: programmkino.de. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  16. ^ EFA Includes Two More Films in Feature Film Selection. In: europeanfilmacademy.org, September 26, 2019.
  17. ↑ Jan Lumholdt: And Then We Danced wins big at Sweden's Guldbagge Awards. In: cineuropa.org, January 21, 2020.
  18. ↑ Best of Cinema Fiction. In: filmfestival.cologne. Retrieved November 6, 2019.