Songs From the Second Floor (Roy Andersson)

One evening, somewhere in country with a gray atmosphere strange events take place: an old employee is dismissed in a very degrading nature. An immigrant is brutally beaten up in the street by the locals. A Sunday magician makes a disastrous mistake during his show sawing accidentally a volunteer in the abdomen. In the middle of this chaos a figure stands out - Karl, a furniture salesman, whose clothes are blackened and his face covered with ashes. He has puts his furniture store in fire to collect the insurance. The day of his birthday, a retired 100-year-old Swedish General receives his celebrating guests in his nursing home. He asks if General Goring will be present. Nobody comes in this night to rest. At a bar, Karl whines constantly that his son went crazy writing poetry. In the meantime outside, business managers take into long marches through the streets of Stockholm and flagellate themselves because of their sins. The city itself is paralyzed by a never ending traffic congestion. While at the beginning of the new millennium everyone loses consciousness regarding the absurdity of our world, a young girl is sacrificed in a ritual in front of a pagan-Christian multitude . Karl is offered a new job selling big wooden crucifixes. No one buys anything, organized religion is puppetry, Karl dumps his crucifixes and learns how hard it is to be a human being ...