The story loosely follows two travelling novelty salesmen and their unsuccessful attempts to sell their vampire teeth, laughing bags and monster masks. But this is merely the framework for a series of absurdist tableaux that comment more generally on history and the human condition.

“This is the third in what Andersson is now calling a trilogy about the human condition, the previous works being You, the Living (2007) and Songs from the Second Floor (2000): the films have been more than worth the wait, both singly and now in their bizarre and magnificent totality. As with its predecessors, this film is a succession of hallucinatory tableaux, each depicting a world of Beckettian loneliness and hyperreal drabness.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

“The Swedish director Roy Andersson makes what could be called cinematic dioramas. Shot in static, rigorously composed long takes, his oblique scenes depict mini-worlds that reflect all the absurdity, cruelty, and humor of our own but are still somehow other.” Bilge Ebiri, Vulture.