Songs from the Second Floor

Songs from the Second Floor unfolds in a Swedish city where daily life has come unmoored. A traffic jam stretches on endlessly, and around it a series of bizarre incidents plays out: a longtime office worker breaks down after being dismissed, a lost immigrant is beaten in the street, a magician's stage act goes badly wrong, and a man who burned down his own furniture store is haunted by a hanged man. A crowd of somber adults gathers for a ritual sacrifice, and well-dressed officials walk the streets whipping themselves. At the center is Kalle, his face smeared with ash from documents that survived a fire, drifting through a world that seems to be announcing some approaching reckoning.

The film is Roy Andersson's second feature and the first in the loose trilogy that continues with You, the Living, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, and About Endlessness. Andersson wrote the screenplay and produced with Lisa Alwert. Lars Nordh plays Kalle, with Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson, Torbjörn Fahlström, Sten Andersson, and Rolando Núñez among the cast.

Made across Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, the film runs 99 minutes. On IMDb it holds 7.5/10 from more than 21,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7/10 from a few hundred votes. A critics' rating of 7.7/10 from 34 reviews places it slightly above the audience scores.