In Swedish director Roy Andersson’s best work, he eschews traditional plots almost completely, instead presenting a broken-up series of small moments —mini melodramas or tiny tragicomedies that play out in front of a static camera and mix the sensibilities of Ingmar Bergman and Jacques Tati.
Andersson’s scenes are haunting—but more importantly, they’re often hilarious, with inventive juxtapositions (a man getting slowly fucked while he describes his bank losing nearly all of his retirement savings), lots of deadpan, and surreal turns, like an 18th-century king stopping at a modern café on his way to battle to get a drink and use the bathroom.