Wendy Ide 

Being a Human Person review – unexpectedly moving

This terrific portrait of Swedish director Roy Andersson at work captures the sense of dread that defines his films
  
  

‘An original’: Roy Andersson in Being a Human Person
‘An original’: Roy Andersson in Being a Human Person. Photograph: Fred Scott

The Swedish director of A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, Roy Andersson has always been a distinctive voice in European cinema. Disinterring humour from the depths of desperation, breathing life into the anguish of mortality, with a colour palette that runs the gamut from concrete grey to cadaver blue, Andersson is an original. In advance of the release of his most recent film, the Venice Silver Lion-winning About Endlessness, this terrific, unexpectedly moving documentary portrait captures the man at work. And the themes that are wryly addressed in his films – existential dread, fear of failure, death, doom – loom all too large in real life for the 77-year-old, whose battle with alcoholism increasingly takes centre stage.

Watch a trailer for Being a Human Person.
 

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