All language subtitles for Something Happened commentary eng

Welcome to the commentary to Roy
Andersson's Something has happened.

My name's Orvar Safstrém
and beside me is Roy.

We'll go into this film in detail later
but let's start with the first scene-

-and the man who finds out
that he's contracted a deadly virus.

It's a very agonised scene.

-Despite the pink walls.
-Yes.

It's almost like a private
- maybe semi-private - clinic.

Not all clinics were modern.
There were also ones like this.

I wanted to depict the helplessness,
or awkwardness, or inadequacy...

Even the doctors in the doorway
are standing there looking helpless.

They can't do anything to help,
and it's a terrible...

It was a way of creating a horror-
filled visualisation of this situation.

This new disease.

And here comes
the glance over the shoulder.

The fear of someone watching
the "little man' who feels...

It's like he's wondering what people
think of the fact that he's infected.

"Are people staring at me?
Do they hate me? Will they?"

And behind him are a couple
apparently free of the virus.

He really is out
on a limb, alone, exposed...

This scene is terrible.
Though it's...

~Funny, too.
-And that's the weird thing about it.

-There's no cure, no vaccine.
~All he can do is take a walk.

"Just try to take a walk,"
say his parents—

-who are at home, helping their son,
stocking his pantry with a little food.

The son is wasting away.

Again we have a chequered floor,
which you'd used a lot in your adverts.

There was a time when
I was fascinated by chequered floors.

To be honest, I think my inspiration
came originally from my favourite film:

The Bicycle Thief.

There's a chequered floor in the
couple's kitchen in The Bicycle Thief.

That struck me a lot later in life.

Your visual style, which permeates
this and other later films—

-was established in 1985
in Why We Should Care.

That's when you
first worked with Istvan Borbas.

All scenes in that film
have chequered floors.

Here are the doctors, who should
have an answer to the mystery.

We can't even see them. They have
to lean into shot to tell us in Latin.

The film is very sarcastic towards
the medical establishment.

We were, and still are convinced-

~that the medical establishment
have withheld facts from the people.

They're afraid of mentioning
certain things:

Namely that humans were involved
in the creation of the virus-

-which didn't just appear
of its own accord.

This they want to conceal,
or cover up, at all costs.

This was an AIDS information film
commissioned by the government.

Do you think they were after
a love story with condoms?

No. They'd seen my film for the Social
Democrats, Why We Should Care.

They liked this new,
stark visual expression.

They wanted something different.

They'd already ordered two films
from other production companies.

And they were unhappy with them,
as they were too conventional.

They wanted something special
that would spark off a debate.

-And that you did, but not as intended.
-No.

And it wasn't
my original intention either.

It was only when we did our research
that we found things that were suspect.

The National Board of Health and
Welfare wanted the help of doctors—

~to impress on the public a theory
that the virus came from Africa.

That is was natural or had been created
through cooking infected ape meat.

Or that someone had been bitten
or scratched by an ape-

-and the virus had then mutated in man.

The strange thing that we found
when we started our research-

-was that the disease only existed in
the USA before it appeared elsewhere.

We also soon found out-

~that the ape that carried
the forerunner of the HIV virus—

-was the world's
most common laboratory ape.

We thought it highly suspect that the
National Board of Health and Welfare

-wanted to keep
this astonishing fact secret

-and spread the theory that it came
from a bite in the African jungle-

-when millions of apes have been used
for research, including virus research.

Your list of the risk groups ultimately
includes all hetero women and men.

How were you reasoning
when you did this?

First, you show a lonely man in
a basement as you talk about gays.

You mention prostitutes... The picture
you give is that it's everyone.

I also wanted to turn
the concepts upside down.

To get away from the preconceptions—

-about what gay and ill people look
like. What does a prostitute look like?

The prostitute here looks like
someone's personal secretary...

...which, of course, she could be.

I wanted to shake up these
preconceptions, this pigeon-holing.

Here are the kids lining up...

Here, we're playing very much
with what the heterosexual looks like.

What's the symbol for it?

It's usually not in this situation

-especially not with these schoolboys.
It alludes to homosexuality, too.

Though he's there
to exemplify heterosexuals.

Here we see the attack
on the medical establishment continue.

Was the language
important in this scene?

There's talk here of
"Negroes" and "darkest Africa".

It's odd that the doctors still have
these prejudices and superstitions.

It's actually very frightening
and still quite ominous—

~that scientists can so easily
resort to superstition and prejudice.

I was reminded of this when I prepared
an exhibition on the Holocaust.

Medical science was deeply involved
in the entire Holocaust process.

People are just sitting, writing.
No one's challenging him.

Is there a sense here of what
you were being asked to do:

To convey a certain message
from the National Board of Health?

They'd probably have wanted us sitting
taking notes too as a basis for a film!

The Board published books, which were
sold cheaply to schools and the public.

They contained exactly the same story
that this doctor is telling.

It's a hugely stupid account. The scene
is seen as an exaggerated parody-

-but it's true, and what
the government was telling people.

Were you surprised
at the Board's reaction?

When did they realise you weren't
making the film they wanted?

Atthe lab scenes
and the human experiments.

Modern research on living humans
was morally no different to Auschwitz.

When they saw this parallel
they pulled out straight away.

They were almost panic stricken,
and wanted to stop the film.

How far had you come with the film?
It was never finished, was it.

We filmed the experiment scenes
last of all.

-Was that intentional, because of this?
-Yes. I first wanted to...

...do these important standard shots
of homosexuals and heterosexuals.

I wanted to get them done, in case
the film was stopped at that point.

But most of all we wanted
to do these experiment scenes.

We wanted to get them done,
and we worked quickly to do so-

-before the film was stopped, as we
knew it was going to cause a storm.

Here's another
over-the-shoulder glance.

In this scene there are some
people sitting playing chess.

And it shows the human sexual drive.

And the shame,
or embarrassment over it.

Will the people sitting inside see?

It depicts people's sense of shame at
sex being part of their daily lives.

That religion
has helped to instil in us.

We have these feelings of shame.
It's taboo to be open about sexuality.

And that AIDS
tore open fresh wounds in.

We were heading for a time of sexual
liberation when this virus came along-

-and turned the clock back.

Here's the antithesis,
the desensualisation of sex.

~That very, very natural thing.
It's an ironic scene.

This is actually how far...

...the Board and everyone associated
with it — school nurses etc. — went.

They travelled round giving such talks.

This is...really taking the Mickey!

-Did you make the models yourself?
-Yes.

They spoke about sexuality etc. in this
unsensual, sexless way back then.

Today...

Maybe they do so today, too.

There was talk at this time about
getting ready for another disease.

-Maybe next time a condom won't help.
-Exactly.

There was Ebola
and other diseases, like bird flu...

Maybe we'd learn more
about what causes them-

-and protect ourselves accordingly.

Here's the little person' again...

...ina very vulnerable situation.
He has the virus and...

...the authorities
are claiming that it's natural-

-while a cynical and advanced medical
world, with its virus research—

—are probably what created it.

-And you're still convinced of this?
-Absolutely.

Here's the officious little midwife
who goes round giving talks...

...saying it's so natural,
but it's so sexless...

But when the lesson's over...

Then all her own sexuality,
the truth behind that human drive...

...is expressed in this scene.

The headmaster enters
and locks the door.

The following scene...

-Don't you find this a funny scene?
It's hilarious.

Here come the two most
controversial scenes in succession.

The first is interesting
for several reasons.

Firstly, the nurse
is holding a monkey...

...to calm the child.
I assume it's the green guenon.

It's bigger than a guenon,
it's a macaque or a small chimpanzee.

But it's some kind of ape.

All kinds of ape have been
used in medical experiments.

Maybe not gorillas,
but certainly chimpanzees and baboons.

The doctors are speaking English here,
and the nurse is coloured.

So it's made quite clear
that this is in America.

This is a reconstruction
of what happened-

~in the Memorial Hospital
in Brooklyn, New York-

-where they did cancer experiments
on mentally retarded people.

Old and young people, who didn't
know what was being done to them.

Here, they're injecting
cancer cells into this girl.

They want to see
if cancer is infectious.

It was a popular hypothesis
at the time.

They thought they could solve
the mystery of cancer-

-as they found that it could be
transmitted between certain animals.

Such as cats.
The cat virus causes leukaemia.

There's also a chicken virus
that was also infectious.

Here we see...
But they hadn't...

Anyway, they wanted to see if it was
possible to spread cancer-

-by injecting cancer cells
into a healthy person.

I'm not sure of
the results of this research...

...but I think it was eventually
abandoned due to the criticism.

But it lasted for several years.

It was also done in prisons
on life prisoners or long-termers.

But on a voluntary basis,
or so it was said.

There's nothing voluntary here. Just
the exploitation of people's ignorance.

The parallel's all too clear here.

These healthy adults have power
over these Mongoloid children-

-by being above them, intellectually.

Here's another type of power.
Using people one has power over

-in that they're
prisoners in Auschwitz—

-with whom they thought
they could do what they liked.

On this man, they're doing a terrible
cold-temperature experiment.

This scene is based on reality.
They did experiments like this—

—just like they did
the experiments in New York.

You weren't afraid
of overstating things here?

You can't overstate things enough.

You can overstate things if you don't
make a scene like this good enough.

But think it's so well done,
with the art direction and lighting...

...and in the convincing behaviour...

Everything's well done.
I'm still very proud of this scene.

How did you film it?

We filmed it in a studio.

-Is that ice?
~lce we ordered from a cold store.

It took a month for it to melt.
We had to leave it on the pavement.

[twas in May, and they
took the whole month to melt.

We had a huge tub of ice.

Why the choice of music?

It's Edvard Persson singing
"Swedish castles and stately homes"-

-by Hjalmar Gullberg.

It was a hit when this racist ideology
emerged in Germany and Sweden.

In the 1930s,
when Nazism took root in Germany.

And when those terrible crimes were
first committed in Germany.

The Swedish public didn't know
about them, as they were kept secret.

But they played Edvard Persson
on the radio-

-singing about the different
castles in southern Sweden.

So there's a clear irony here,
between terrible facts—

-and the withholding of facts.

It was a famous poet who wrote
the lyrics, which are rather devout.

Now we're back in the normal reality
of the film. The train, the flat...

Could the film have ended here?
Here comes more...

Is this how the film would have
been edited had it been finished?

We had a section that was going to
be about beautiful eroticism and love.

And perhaps about contraception.

We'd never have
been criticised for that.

So we put that aside to do this first.

But then the scenes would probably
have been in a different order.

This is also important to me...

...because this is so damn cynical.

Medical research units
are common in USA prisons.

Prisoners are often
the subjects of terrible experiments.

Voluntary ones, I have to say. I don't
know what they get for it, though.

Reduced sentences, the privilege
to escape the daily routine...

But here they've done
all sorts of things on people.

Even the lethal irradiation
of the male prisoners' testicles.

Overdoses of X-rays and the like.

Exactly the same as they did
in Germany, in Auschwitz.

Here, the prisoners
are being introduced...

The scientists come in
and are introduced to the prisoners.

And they're calling for volunteers.

-And they start to sing...
-Many of them sign up for the trials.

They sing
"When the saints come marching in"-

-which appears at the end of your third
student film. Is that a coincidence?

It's such a classic film...
-You mean song.

It was very popular when I was young.

I even played it myself.
I used to play trombone in a band.

It's also very suggestive of America.

It was originally a...
what's it called...Gospel song.

A religious song sung by the black
cotton pickers. lt fitted in well here.

Here are the adults in a line,
just like the children before.

-What are they waiting for?
~The bus. The future.