''World of Glory'' is a 1991 Swedish short film written and directed by

Roy Andersson Roy Arne Lennart Andersson (born 31 March 1943) is a Swedish film director, best known for ''A Swedish Love Story'' (1970), '' About Endlessness'' (2019) and his "Living trilogy," which includes '' Songs from the Second Floor'' (2000), '' You, ...

. Its original Swedish title is ''Härlig är jorden'', which means "Lovely is the Earth", and is the Swedish title of the hymn "

Fairest Lord Jesus "Fairest Lord Jesus", also known as "Beautiful Savior", is a Christian hymn. History According to some accounts, it was called "Crusader's Hymn" because it was sung by German Crusaders as they made their way to the Holy Land. But William Jensen ...

". The narrative portrays a man in white make-up who guides the viewer through his life in a bleakly stylised world, beginning with a scene with soldiers loading nude adults and children into a

gas van A gas van or gas wagon (russian: душегубка, ''dushegubka'', literally "soul killer"; german: Gaswagen) was a truck reequipped as a mobile gas chamber. During the World War II Holocaust, Nazi Germany developed and used gas vans on a large ...

for execution. The film was Andersson's critical comeback to cinema, after many years in advertising.

Production

In 1975, Andersson's critical and commercial failure ''

Giliap ''Giliap'' is a 1975 Swedish drama film directed by Roy Andersson, starring Thommy Berggren as a man who takes a job as a waiter at a run-down hotel. It was a financial and critical failure, and it led to Andersson's not making another feature fil ...

'' had forced him to disappear from the cinema scene and instead work as a director of advertisements. Several of his commercials eventually gained critical acclaim for their idiosyncratic style. Andersson said it was the Polish director

Krzysztof Kieślowski Krzysztof Kieślowski (; 27 June 1941 – 13 March 1996) was a Polish film director and screenwriter. He is known internationally for ''Dekalog'' (1989), ''The Double Life of Veronique'' (1991), and the ''Three Colours'' trilogy (1993 –1994) ...

who finally made him regain faith in cinema and return to filmmaking. ''World of Glory'' was commissioned by the

Gothenburg Film Festival Göteborg Film Festival (GFF), formerly Göteborg International Film Festival (GIFF), known in English as the Gothenburg Film Festival, formerly Gothenburg International Film Festival, is an annual film festival in Gothenburg, Sweden and the larg ...

as an entry for a short-film series called ''90 minuter 90-tal'' ("90 minutes 90s"). The budget was four million kronor.

References

External links

* * 1991 films Films directed by Roy Andersson 1990s Swedish-language films Swedish short films 1991 short films 1990s Swedish films {{1990s-Sweden-film-stub