No one makes movies like Roy Andersson. His painterly tableaux — with their muted Scandinavian colors; their air of quiet, often hilarious desperation; his sad-clown characters enduring the joys and indignities of daily life; his camera never moving — could only be the work of this singular Swedish visionary. About Endlessness follows such Andersson masterworks as You, the Living and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence in distilling the awful comedy of human existence into priceless vignettes. This droll panorama is narrated by an unseen young woman who “remembers” each scene that unfolds before us, whether it be a desperate priest who’s lost his faith, Hitler stumbling into his bunker as his empire collapses, a distracted old waiter pouring wine until it spills all over his customers’ table, or lovers who fly through the air in a Chagall-like embrace over the ruins of Cologne.

Winner: Best Director, Venice