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Roy Andersson in his studio in Stockholm's Östermalm district
Photo: Lindahl / RN / Aftonbladet / TT / imago images / TT
A model of Cologne Cathedral is still enthroned on two cardboard boxes in the middle of Roy Andersson's studio in Stockholm.
The remainder of a six by six meter detailed replica of the war-torn Cologne in 1945, which plays an important role in "Beyond Infinity": In the most visually breathtaking setting of his new film, a young couple flies tightly over the ruined city.
A picture full of poetry and horror.
The Swede actually wanted to choose Dresden as the background for the setting, he reveals in an interview, but in order to illustrate the consequences of the war, Cologne, with the miraculously intact cathedral amid the destruction, offered the more exciting motif.
It is unusual for Andersson that he has chosen such a specific setting, but the theme of the Second World War and the crimes that went with it runs through almost the entire work of the 76-year-old film director.
"It has to do with my age," he explains in his conference room littered with books directly above the studio.
"I was born during the Second World War. My father was a soldier on the border between Sweden and Norway. He always said that the German soldiers were very nice. We shared cigarettes and coffee. I did what really happened in World War II read later. I still don't understand how it could be possible to perpetrate such atrocities on humanity, especially the Jews, of course. "
In the last 20 years Andersson has made four feature films, all of which revolve around the absurdity of human existence, exceptional situations such as war, but above all the banality of everyday life.
They have been showered with prizes, including a jury award in Cannes for "Songs from the Second Floor" (2000), the Golden Lion in Venice for "A dove sits on a branch and thinks about life" (2014) and last year a Silver Lion for "Beyond Infinity".
"I want to create a kaleidoscopic narrative"
Roy Andersson
In these films, everyday life can quickly turn into cruelty or - albeit rarely - into fleeting moments of happiness.
Andersson always tells episodically.
There are no continuous stories, at best individual characters whose fate is sporadically pursued.
In no other film is this as noticeable as in "On Infinity", which is now running in the cinema.
A rudimentary narrative thread shows a priest who has lost his faith and tries to relieve his depression with altar wine.
But actually the film consists of thematically only loosely connected individual scenes: a man hides his savings under the mattress, out of distrust of the banks;
another makes a dentist resign himself because he is both afraid of the anesthetic injection and of the drill;
a third one cries on the bus, stammering to himself again and again: "I don't know what I want" - and only gets annoyed reactions.
"I'm less and less interested in telling linear stories," explains Andersson.
"I want to create a kaleidoscopic narrative: all the scenes together tell us something about humanity. That is better than sticking to a fate."
As in the previous films, every scene in "About Infinity" is told in a single shot with no or barely noticeable camera movement.
Inspired by his love for painting and the realism theory of the French film critic and theorist André Bazin, Andersson has developed his own aesthetic.
In his long, deep shots he gives the viewer the opportunity to explore the cinematic space without being directed by the director.
For Andersson, this expresses respect for his audience: He wants to show, not teach.
In a way, his films develop the
tableaux vivants
from the 18th century, in which famous works of art history are recreated with living people.
Although Andersson quotes the models from painting more, sometimes less directly: In the case of the Cologne scene, Marc Chagall's poetic, expressive pictures inspired him to create the flying lovers - the Jewish painter repeatedly portrayed himself and his wife Bella in this way .
Andersson's approach requires meticulous control of the image, which he can only achieve in his own studio.
Almost all of his films are made in his old building in Stockholm's Östermalm district, which, in addition to Andersson's apartment and studio on the ground floor, also houses his office, a cutting room, a small cinema and even a prop and clothing store.
It is amazing how small a space Andersson’s films take.
Scenes such as the flight over Cologne or a dream sequence in which the apostate pastor finds himself in the role of Jesus on a kind of Stockholm Via Dolorosa convey an astonishing vastness on the screen.
Andersson and his team have now developed an almost perfect optical illusion technique.
"I grew up in a craftsman environment," says Andersson.
"My relatives were very anxious to do a good job."
But doesn’t he take on many creative options with his way of working that other filmmakers naturally have at their disposal?
Doesn't he sometimes want to move the camera freely, break up a scene into different shots, and give the actors free rein?
Take off your tight, aesthetic corset?
"I would like to, but I don't know how," says Andersson.
"If I tried, the result just wasn't good. Why do something that's worse than what you've already done?"
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