About Endlessness (Om det oändliga)

Directed by Roy Andersson. In Swedish, with English subtitles. Available to stream at VIFF Connect until June 3.

The arrival of a new Roy Andersson movie every few years should be heralded as an event, even if the idiosyncratic Swedish auteur seems to be running out of things to say.

Where 2014’s A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence and 2007’s You The Living seemed like decent companion pieces to 2000’s masterful Songs From The Second Floor, finding interesting new ways to work within the absurdist tableaux format that is Andersson’s preferred mode of expression—About Endlessness feels thinly sketched and not especially insightful.

Once again, Andersson tells stories through elaborate single-take vignettes in which an assortment of doughy Scandinavian everyfolk struggle with petty jealousies, class envy or some personal apocalypse—like a priest’s ongoing crisis of faith—until the scene ends in a blackout.

But it’s hard to ignore that most of this film’s vignettes are all setup and no punchline, leaving us wondering how (or if) the various pieces are meant to fit together, and what statement is being made.