Roy Andersson’s About Endlessness

“The people are all pale as mushrooms, blending in with the ashen cityscapes, sterile white rooms, and drab, half-empty restaurants. Stuck in meticulously composed dioramas, they enact miniature comedies and tragedies—sometimes it is hard to say which—filled with deadpan humor and haunting bleakness. We could only be in a Roy Andersson movie.” Imogen Sara Smith wrote these words about Andersson’s latest, About Endlessness, which graced the cover of Film Comment’s May-June 2020 issue. The global pandemic was just starting to take hold back then, and the Swedish filmmaker’s work seemed to offer an uncannily apt vision of life in 2020. With About Endlessness finally opening in theaters, FC editors Devika Girish and Clinton Krute welcomed Imogen and another long-time FC contributor, Jonathan Romney, for a conversation about the film and its place in Andersson’s utterly distinctive filmography. Don’t forget to sign up for the Film Comment Letter, launching on May 6! It’s a free digital newsletter that will deliver original writing by Film Comment contributors directly to your inbox every Thursday. Sign-up today at filmcomment.com and receive a free digital download of a Film Comment back issue of your choice.