Songs from the Second Floor

Songs from the Second Floor (Sånger från andra våningen, 2000) is a Swedish absurdist drama directed by Roy Andersson, available to watch online on iFILM. Stockholm has ground to a halt — an immovable traffic jam stretches across the city, and nobody is going anywhere.

Around that gridlock, Andersson layers a series of disconnected scenes: a sacked office worker haunted by a spectral colleague, a magician who accidentally saws his volunteer in half for real, a procession of suited officials flogging themselves through the streets, a crowd of adults leading a small girl toward the edge of a cliff. None of these scenes are explained, and none connect into a plot. Each is shot in a single static frame — the camera never moves, not once.

The film took the Jury Prize at Cannes 2000 and launched Andersson's Living trilogy. It is not a film for everyone, and it knows it. If Beckett or early Tati is your frequency, this one hits the same nerve — deadpan, bleak, oddly funny, and precise about institutional paralysis and collective shame. Stream Songs from the Second Floor (2000) online on iFILM.