One cannot review Roy Andersson’s “You, The Living” without
first taking into account the manner in which it is made, and I understand that
a description of this sort may make the film seem dull, or reduce it in some
way, so don’t be put off. The film is nothing more than a series of fifty
vignettes, or tableaux, detailing the lives of various characters in one small
Swedish town. The camera doesn’t move, or when it does it doesn’t move very
much, and that’s in not much more than five of the segments anyway.
It sounds like an experiment, or perhaps the kind of thing
that might be better suited to an art-gallery, or an installation somewhere. But
where the film sidesteps being gimmicky is in its rigorous and meticulous
construction and unwaveringly sympathetic eye towards human nature. It is, by
turns, unsettling, funny, warm, inviting, bleak and strangely hopeful. It s a
film that does no more than invite you to be alone with your thoughts for a
while, and it induced in me a certain strange serenity. Despite the various odd
elements here, no film has put me at ease as quickly as this one.
The vignettes that the film is comprised of… Let me describe
the first couple. The film opens with a man lying asleep on a settee in a
fairly uncomfortable manner. The camera is still, and an unseen train rattles
the apartment. The man awakes suddenly and tells the audience that he dreamt he
was being bombed. Already, we are gripped; what films break the fourth wall so
early on, in such a bizarre manner?
The second vignette, and one of my favourites, concerns a
woman on a bench telling her boyfriend to go away, that nobody understands her,
that she is miserable. It’s clear that she’s attention seeking, but just when
you think all possibilities of the sketch have been exhausted, she breaks out
into tuneful, upbeat song.
And so on, and so on, leading on from each other, or not,
until the film reaches an ominous yet beautiful and startling conclusion. It’s
as if Richard Linklater’s “Slacker” was directed by a metaphysical poet. It’s a
gorgeous experience, and each tableaux could be a complete short film on its
own. Some are funny, some are scary, some are plain sad, and the film flirts
with Kafka in one memorable sequence where a man finds himself placed in an
electric chair after his attempt to whisk a tablecloth from out under the table
goes awkwardly, horribly wrong.
The film too has a certain dreamy, creamy quality which
bolsters the effect that Andersson seems to be going for. The cinematography by
Gustav Danielsson is delightful, relishing in the clear, composed images that
Andersson has devised. The set design, too, is angular and slightly off-kilter,
with Magnus Renfors and Elin Segerstedt having created a world where the images
are constantly “not right” in the way that we scrutinise them constantly for
details we might not be missing. Yet, every element is right there on screen
for us to see; sometimes things will happen which jolt our perceptions, sometimes
we stay focussed on one character doing nothing much at all. But we are always
gripped.
Perhaps the major strength of this film is how Andersson
seems to understand human nature, and is presenting a cross-section of us as a
race. We are all here, with our lusts, love, self-loathing, joy, melancholy,
our art and our attempts at making each other happy. One sequence, for example,
sees a particularly nasty thunderstorm set into the town, and characters start
peering out the window and stopping their business just to listen to it; and,
believe it or now, I found myself enjoying the thunderstorm as well. This is
the kind of film that it is; one which makes you a participant in the actions
as much as the actors that Andersson has hired. You cannot help but be
involved. This is helped by the jubilant, buoyant Dixieland score, which
results in a certain tuneful tone to the film.
There is, no doubt, masses of subtext and ways in which the
film can be read that I have missed out on; but I don’t think I’ve missed out
on too much, because for me the film is first and foremost a treatise on human
nature. That’s no small achievement. Above all, as a series of images, it
represents a stripping back to the bare essentials of film, an exercise of
formality that manages to draw the viewer in with quiet confidence. It’s a
unique, blackly funny film that I cannot recommend enough, for its deadpan,
rather sublime vision.
(you may note I have not listed any actors by name; there
are so many in this film and their jobs are all so crucial that to name one
would mean I would have to name them all. Instead, I shall compromise and link
you to the cast IMDb page. They deserve their credit as much as the director- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445336/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast)
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