Sånger från andra våningen (Songs from the Second Floor) - review

Some movies leave me wondering whether I just don't share the director's mindset, or whether he realizes what I suspect: namely, that what he made seems like a load of incoherent, vaguely symbolic crap to most of us. In the case of "Songs from the Second Floor", I'm inclined to go for the second theory. The movie definitely has its share of surreal moments and imagery (a magician really sawing a member of the audience in half, for instance), but there is hardly anything to connect the dots, no overall view. You could, of course, say the same for a surrealist par excellence like Luis Buñuel. However, he had some important qualities in his films that made them brilliant. Absurd humor, genuine warmth, a dream-like atmosphere, and above all, liveliness. The "Songs" (the title is a mystery to me, too, by the way) are wry, depressing and grey. There's no rebellion to be found here, only gloominess. For a movie that was praised all around, I didn't find a lot of good in it anywhere. Some good moments, no good movie.