Du levande (2007) Reviews

• A dreamlike reality or a realistic dream?

  andrejs-visockis2007-09-11

  The Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson's latest film You, the Living is not easy to review. One of the reasons is that in his own words he has broken with the Anglo-Saxon tradition of story-telling, in all essence the template of most Western film productions. Another reason might be that although Roy Andersson is somewhat heavy on symbolisms, his, unlike those of, say, Andrei Tarkovsky, are of a more elusive nature. It took him 3 years to complete this 86 minute long film and it wasn't because he was forced to have long breaks between shootings due to financial troubles or problems with the actors. The film consists of 57 vignettes shot mostly by a still camera, and it was the careful design of each of these scenes which required much time. The imagery of this film which is closely related to the director's previous film Songs from the Second Floor is of utmost importance to the story, thus this story is told to a great degree by the surroundings and the environment in which the characters of Andersson's universe dwell and interact. Before each scene was finally shot, there would have been no less than 10 different test shootings with different actors, colors, dialog etc. The result is a dreamlike version of the surrounding world which most of us would recognize and if the setting is like a dream, why not dream a little? Just like in Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, when somebody says "Last night I had a dream", you get to watch it. But then again, what is perceived as reality here is not very much different from the dreams. Despite the fact that the film lacks a plot in the traditional sense of the word and there are no main characters as such, the different characters who appear and reappear in different scenes still meet each other and their stories are inevitably intertwined. What most of these characters have in common is their apparent loneliness despite being surrounded by other people. The trailer trash chain smoking and binge drinking woman who dreams of having a motorbike so that she can get away from "all this crap", her corpulent and mostly silent boyfriend and his frail and seemingly gentle but rather absent-minded mother, members of a brass band whose skill improving efforts at home aren't getting a favorable reception neither from their families nor their neighbors, the depressed Middle Eastern hairdresser and his arrogant customer on his way to "a very important business meeting", an elderly man having a nightmare about bombers in the skies, a young girl dreaming about marrying the young rock star that she is so madly in love with. It's all about dreams and nightmares versus reality but it works as much as a statement in support of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's claims that "all human communication is miscommunication". People speak to each other but it is as if they speak past each other. They try to reach out to the others but shut the others out when those try to reach them. You, the Living is a poetic film set physically in Stockholm but yet universally applicable. The society it portrays is Sweden, its artistic language and the people displayed are generally unmistakably Nordic. Yet, the subject it deals with, namely, the misery of the humankind in a selfish world, reaches far beyond this hemisphere. Despite the seriousness of its theme, the film itself seems a lot more cheerful and laden with humor than one might have expected. But in the words of the director himself "living is so complicated to each one of us that the only thing that saves us is our sense of humor". Hence, this film is a tragic comedy or a comic tragedy, depending on your sensitivities, and not a depressing black reality tour of the human nature. It is unusual in its language and structure, but if you can think outside the box and enjoy it, you will certainly find this film both entertaining and meaningful at the same time. It was shown at this year's Cannes festival as part of the Un Certain Regard program which offers "original and different works" outside the competition. After the film was shown in the Salle Debussy, the 1,000 strong audience gave it a standing ovation for several minutes. Do I need to say more?

• An intimate insight into what makes us all human

  carinaroo2007-10-06

  There is no plot. There are no central characters. There are no moving cameras or close-ups. In fact, this film does not follow any of the conventional storytelling techniques used by mainstream film. However, Roy Andersson's Du Levande is a remarkable piece of cinematic storytelling. It is a touching look at the human psyche. Comprised of a series of vignettes, Roy Andersson gives us an intimate insight into what makes us all human. In perfectly framed static shots, added with the perfectly in tune, yet quirky, music, Roy introduces us to a host of characters as they undertake their daily existence. Some bordering on tragic, others hilarious, we are taken on a Nordic journey like no other. It is a journey into the little things that make us human. Instead of over-the-top storytelling or visual techniques, everything is stripped down to the bare minimum so that our sole focus is on the characters themselves. It focuses on the insignificant points of our lives that make us who we are; our dreams, our desperation. It's through this simple observation of others that we can accept who we are as individuals. The washed out colours and deathly-pale makeup of the characters only seems to emphasize their individual stories and remind us that unlike them, we are all alive. There is no happy ending or light at the end of the tunnel in this film, yet you walk out of the cinema with a sense of life. Much more accessible than his earlier film, Songs from the Second Floor, Du Levande, is a truly inspiring piece of cinema.

• This is a wonderful, human film.

  Robert_Woodward2008-05-25

  Roy Anderson's film 'You, The Living' comprises a series of fifty-odd sketches, snapshots and vignettes set in a Swedish city. Some characters are on screen for just a few second, whilst others appear in numerous scenes and are sometimes seen loitering in the background while another story unfolds. Many scenes are drawn from the dreams, nightmares and fantasies of the strange but believable characters inhabiting this world. It is a fascinating approach: each of the scenes could be enjoyed in isolation, but together they contain a powerful portrait of what it is to be human. For the first half hour or so, 'You, The Living' is gloriously funny. Much of the humour centres on the members of a brass band, whose music practice infuriates the neighbours in their apartment block. The comic highlight, however, is provided by a dinner-party track gone horribly awry. After this hilarious introduction, however, the mood of the film darkens considerably. The dinner-party dream turns grim when the hapless protagonist is put on trial for his life, setting a mixed tone of absurdity and despair for the rest of the film. In the subsequent scenes, the unhappiness of the cast of characters becomes increasingly apparent. Theirs is a world where people are unable to connect with one another, where talk of dreams, nightmares and fantasies is widespread, but where no person can be comforted, even when others reach out to help them. The despondent woman with the 'nobody loves me' refrain and the young girl with unrequited love for the rock guitarist, Micke, are archetypal characters. The world of 'You, The Living' is also blighted by selfishness. An elderly professor is called away the warmth of a vast banquet to answer a phone call from his impetuous money-grubbing son; a thief steals the wallet of a ruthless executive; an arrogant and impatient businessman insults a Muslim barber and receives his comeuppance. In the film's bleakest moment, a woman in church recounts the long list of human sins as her fellow parishioners shuffle out at closing time. And yet, for all dark moments in this film, the shared refrain of 'tomorrow is another day' points to the ability of people to go on living in spite of many miseries. The soundtrack provided by Benny Anderson (of ABBA fame) seems inappropriately jovial at first but makes more and more sense as the film realises this human capacity to persevere. 'You, The Living' has an extraordinary visual style. The same washed-out, pale-green colours recur throughout, and there is nary a shadow in sight; this makes the characters appear exceptionally pallid and creates the sensation that human life is being laid bare for examination. Almost every scene is captured in a static camera frame, as if these are photographs being brought to life. The few occasions where the camera does move are all the more extraordinary; the contrast between the life and movement of the great banquet form a startling contrast with the deadness of the cloakroom scene. In the most intense moments of longing and despair, the characters transfix the viewer by directly facing the camera – they know that they are being examined and have a few moments to pour out their hearts to us, the viewers. This is a wonderful, human film.

• There's an endless fascination about where the film wants to take us

  movedout2008-04-06

  The large bell in a bar intermittently rings for last orders and the inevitable rush to queue forms at the counter – do we want what we need only when it's too late? Or is the irony of the opening scene's wailing Cassandra a more resonant reflection of our perceptions on individual existence? There's an endless fascination about where writer-director Roy Andersson wants to take us in his fourth feature, "You, The Living". With fifty or so semi-related vignettes strung together by a penchant for tragicomic hyper-reality, its wistful interpretations and symbolic instances of life that bind us all in this great big cosmic Sisyphean struggle. The sheer simplicity of these vignettes act to dramatise the tenuity and immense preciousness of being apart of the symbiotic relationships we have with one another. Andersson might whittle down the complexity of the human condition through harsh and fast cynicism more than he should, but he also reminds us of the inherent, reassuring glory of waking up each morning to a new tomorrow when we're all aware of our own distinct forms of arrested development.

• Another cautionary tale in Andersson's unmistakable style

  howard.schumann2007-09-30

  "With all the misery in the world, how can we not get drunk?" – Mia A lovely aerial view of a major city turns ominous with the approach of a fleet of airplane bombers; an irate hairdresser reacting to a perceived racial slur cuts a road through a businessman's bushy hair; a man dreams of being dragged to an electric chair after a failed magic trick and a teacher breaks down in front of her grade school class because her husband called her a hag. These and about fifty other vignettes that run the gamut from the outright depressing to the wildly humorous to the joyously uplifting populate Roy Andersson's You, the Living, his first feature since his critically acclaimed if commercially unsuccessful Songs From the Second Floor. You, the Living is filled with the same kind of imaginative set-pieces as Songs, replete with black humor, surreal situations, and strange looking characters. Though a bit overlong and less focused than his earlier work, what remains constant is Andersson's unmistakable style with its stationary camera, sterile-looking backgrounds, and precise attention to detail. If there is a theme that ties the sketches together, it is that our time on Earth is limited and "tomorrow's another day', so let's treat each other with kindness. Along the way, we are entertained by tuba and drum music from the Louisiana Brass Band, dinner guests at a banquet hall standing on their chairs singing a rousing song, and a house that turns into a moving train. The emotions range from the gloom of a daughter attempting to communicate with an Alzheimer's patient to a young woman's ecstatic dream about marrying a handsome guitar-player named Micke to the cheers of a crowd of onlookers. While there is no continuous narrative thread, the theme of greed and desperation appears in several sketches. The first of these threads features two corpulent individuals and their tiny dog sitting on a park bench, the woman bewailing the fact that no one understands or loves her, yet she blithely ignores the man's comforting and reassuring words. There is also a hefty admixture of irony. During what seems to be an executive luncheon, one man tells another on the phone that workers don't appreciate quality and how nice it is to appreciate money and the things that it can buy such as fine wine. When he is not looking, however, a man at an adjacent table calmly lifts his wallet from his jacket on the back of his chair. Though Andersson's cynicism is at times not very well hidden, You the Living has an underlying humanism that shows compassion for the human condition. It is a cautionary tale that looks at the mess we humans have gotten ourselves into but suggests there is still time to turn it around, if we heed the warning of the poet Goethe that opens the film, "Be pleased then, you the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe's ice-cold wave will lick your escaping foot."