YOU, THE LIVING

You, the Living, (2007) dir Roy Andersson

You, the Living is a beautiful series of filmed vignettes, arrayed in a variety of pastel hues which are exquisitely matched to the decor. This film is poignant, sometimes tragic, but also funny and askew. Many of the images, such as the scene where a voyeur is watching a man attempting to bang the ceiling to alert a brass player about his noise level, are onion-shaped. Each layer peels back to another horizon. An old man wheeling his zimmerframe pulls a whelping puppy behind him while some cooks look on. In another vignette a table cloth is pulled off to reveal a pair of swastikas in black polished mahogany, but the old and expensive crockery crashes onto the floor. Behind the facade dwells a darker, sinister history, but nothing is made to pull this into any overall coherence. There's a distinct Nordic quality, (of course, the film was made in Sweden) lemon yellow light, sombre shadows, amongst all those pastel blues, yellows and creams. Deeper perspectives intimate expansive spaces in the soul too, but also closer boundaries or ties and claustrophobia too, as if Sweden will ultimately prove too small for some of the characters depicted here.

You, the Living is highly recommended, querky and loveable, but the viewer has to be patient in order to enjoy its subtle addition of events and effects.

Paul Murphy

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