Even though About Endlessness first world-premiered at the Venice Film Festival back in the fall of 2019 (Where it won Swedish director Roy Andersson the Silver Lion for Best Director), it's finally becoming available for international audiences, set to be released in theaters and on demand on April 30 from Magnolia Pictures. Though if one watches the trailer, one finds themselves wondering what exactly they are watching, beyond it apparently being a variation of the classic Arabian Nights folk tales.
Using a war as a background thoroughline for the larger story, the film's narrator is Scheherazade, who was part of the framing device of the original Arabian Nights collection where she exchanged tales with her husband, the ruler Shahryār. In the film, in a similar capacity, she guides audiences through a series of skits that aren't always so simple and seem to become more dreamlike as the story goes on. This is particularly noted in a skit that involves a couple floating over a war-torn Cologne though the overall point of the film is to capture what initially seem like inconsequential moments. A father taking his daughter to a birthday party, teenage girls dancing outside a cafe, and a defeated army marching to a prisoner-of-war camp. These are only a few moments to come as the trailer demonstrates. Check it out below:
Stay tuned!