Ol Roy

Roy Andersson is a Swedish film director, most famous for his unique cinematography and borderline motionless movie scenes. With six short films, as well as six feature length movies (his most recent being A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence), Andersson has kept at a snail’s pace creatively since his career began in 1967- he works with lengthy preparation times and tedious filming to create scenes more akin to a painting than a movie. These intensely analyzed, refined, and often scrapped projects leave Andersson’s rarely finished works almost exactly as he imagined them, something that worked in his favor when he received a prestigeous Golden Lion award for Best Movie in 2014.
Andersson’s obsession with composition and visual intrigue are a defining element throughout all of his works. There is usually little movement of the actors in his films beyond stiff, subdued shuffling- and absolutely no movement of the single camera recording their performance. Shots are set to showcase only one perspective, allowing the viewer to visually dissect the meticulously orchestrated scene- as well as observe the way it subtly changes as different elements interact with one another. In fact, the visual elements of his movies seem to hold as much of a conversation as his actors as they meander and stagnate in their assigned positions on his set.
The still images of his films are borderline depressive at first glance, the muted tones of color and stark fluorescent lighting showing as much excitement as a cramped clinic waiting room. It would be almost suffocating if not for the deadpan dark comedy Andersson specializes in, presenting an image of urban loneliness filled with unspoken visual dialogue and solitary, uninvolved actors milling about in artificial cafes. Small, interwoven- as well as wholly separate realities exist in his confined worlds, their only method of communication with the audience often falling to small suggestions or implications in their expression, posture, or the clothes carefully chosen by their director to leave an intended impression on the viewer. This mirrors the nonlinear plotlines of his films, with interconnected scenes appearing at first to completely divulge from the last as the movie progresses. These solitary still frames and loosely connected individuals in his compositions help to showcase the exact nature of his inspiration from artists like Edward Hopper and Honoré Daumier- urban scenes of complex isolation serving as his central focus.

“Life is a tragedy. There’s no happy end for any of us. We all die. But there’s a lot of comedy in it. There’s comedy and vulnerability . . . I’m trying to show what it’s like to be human.”—Roy Andersson