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Du levande (2007)
You, the Dying
Roy Andersson has become known for his deadpan, surrealist, and often-dark humor. You, the living is a great example of that. It deals with the lives of ordinary strange people with no real connections until you look closer and notice the details. For me, that is what makes this movie funny, sad, and artistically impressive.
Andersson is known for tending to use unprofessional actors in his film, which add to both the realness of the reality he has created and the offsetting surrealist feel of the film. Thought You, the Living, Andersson has the actors monologue about their lives (often breaking the fourth wall) with whatever grievance or happiness is afflicting them. One woman (in a very famous scene) reflects on a dream she had in which she married her crush. Another woman cries as her class watches because her husband called her a name. The acting is atrocious, but the sets are absolutely incredible, so that there is a strange disconnect between the actors and their surroundings. At the same time, their slightly off looks, pale dead-like faces match the sad, dreary, sterile feeling of the environment they are placed.
The humor in this film tends to be completely oblivious to the characters, which is a sad commentary on the reality we find ourselves in. A great example from the film is the very sweet looking man who is practicing his drums. He is alone in a very simple room listening to music while keeping beat with his drum, which has been muffed. Partway through the scene, the door shuts behind him in a seemingly angry way, while the man notices, does not seem bothered and continues to play. Another example is when a man is recalling a dream he had while slowly passing the camera in his car (he is stuck in traffic) The entire dream is emotionless for him until the very end when he has the realization that the electric chair is a terrible invention.
Andersson uses steady, long shots to capture this humor. Because of this, he has created a style that is entirely his own with no imitators or followers. This is partly because the shots and construction of the set are so detailed that other directors cannot possibly think of doing it in this way because it is so time (and money) consuming. When the woman talks about marring the guitarist. Andersson built that large set on a functional rail so it could be moved around and leave at the end of the scene. While digitally altering the film may have been more feasible, knowing how much work went into that one scene is incredible and makes watching it again, that much more impressive. In this sense I can really see the artistry in this film, even if I did not particularly enjoy watching it, I can appreciate the effort, time, and thought that went into each scene.
For all its humor and incredible artistry, the overall message of the film is rather sad and depressing. Andersson tears about the way we think we fit into this world with his mockery of our feeble attempts to be something special. He even troughs the title in our face with a bit of sarcasm and perhaps contempt, You, the Living. With the sad monotonous way we live our life and pointing out the humiliation of our existence. Though Andersson has been critiqued for his seemingly blaming stance of society, he says he does it with a sad heart, and that his films are not meant to anger, but are done with understanding and sadness.
You, the Living is supposed to be the second in a trilogy of films, the first being Songs from the Second Floor. His next and third film for this series is anticipated to come out soon. What I find interesting, is with his great success of his first movie, A Swedish Love Story, he was depressed about being pegged for a certain type of style and refused to make a sequel. After years of work (not with feature films) he has finally been pegged down to a style, but it entirely his own and of his own making. In today's world, even with a relatively new industry like film, that originality and creativity is what I find most impressive; especially with his work in You, the Living.
Hævnen (2010)
Codes of Conduct
In a better world explores the relationships between people, and the environment they find themselves in. Though it could be considered a melodrama for the extreme situations and type of events the characters deal with, I consider it a drama because of the heartfelt way it was presented and the incredible acting especially on the children's part.
The story focuses mainly on Denmark with clips from Anton's time in the Sudan in stark contrast to the orderly world. Though instead of alienating that storyline, both geographical locations worked very well in tandem. Anton, who seems so in control and composed in Denmark, especially dealing with the mechanic who slaps him on multiple occasions, is finally placed in a similar situation to his young boy, Elias. After doing the right thing, or what objectively doctors would agree to be the right thing, Anton loses his black and white morals and pulls the sickly cruel warlord out of the hospital to be beaten to death by the people.
In contrast to his son, Elias, Anton does not need a catalyst. Elias does. The only time Elias really sees his father is when he is in control. Even when Anton is emotional about his marriage, Elias is absent. Elias deals with bulling at school, but has no role model besides his dad, so he does his best to ignore it. He keeps his head down and hopes the bullies go away.
Christian is in sharp opposite to Elias, and actually much more like Anton than either character would probably admit. Having just recently lost his mother, who seemed to be his moral compass in the world, his relationship with his father deteriorates. Consequently his idea of what is right and wrong becomes solidified into a very violent brutal code. After being punched in the face, Christian's response is to beat the bully with a bike pump and take a knife to his neck. Elias witnesses the attack, but both boys lie about the knife. Later Christian gives the knife to Elias both as an offer of friendship but also symbolizing Elias taking on Christian's code. Christian's code would fit much better in the Sudanese world Anton finds himself in, than the clean swept streets of Denmark.
Elias takes on this code without fully realizing what it is all about. After it is revealed to him that Christian wants to build a bomb to blow up the mechanics car, Elias backs out. But after a failed attempt to speak with his dad, and his mother freaking out because she found the knife, Elias returns to Christian. At one point in the move, just after Anton has saved Christian from suicide he tells him "Sometimes it feels like there is a veil between you and death, but that veil disappears when you loose someone you loved or someone who was close to you, and you see death clearly, for a second, but later the veil returns, and you carry on living. Then things will be alright again." Anton, who experiences this absence of veil on a regular basis with the young women and children he treats understands the turmoil inside of Christian. He understands Christians need to act. Just before this, Anton had thrown the warlord out of the hospital knowing he would be beaten to death, but he had no regret, which I believe is what scared him most. In that moment however, there was no veil between him and death and he was extremely vulnerable. Anton can recognize this in Christian and understand him. Anton is the only one to know Christian has gone to the silo. Anton's understanding of Christian's situation helps Christian accept death as a part of life, and in some small way, reinstall the veil he has been living without.
Marianne also has this veil between her and death removed when Elias almost dies. Even though he is all right, the trauma of seeing her son being brought in on a gurney and covered in blood has a profound effect on her. When she sees Christian try to visit her son, she threatens him pushing him up against the wall with her hand on his throat. She tells Christian that he had killed her son before he runs away. Marianne, who is shown, thought the film as an emotional character becomes brutal in this instant. She takes on Christian's code of violence when her son's life is threatened. Her response to Christian after this traumatic event is vital to understanding the turmoil inside Christian and Anton both.
All in all this is an incredible look into the effect of death and the complicated but beautiful relationships between people.
Himlens hjärta (2008)
Headshots and More Headshots
Heavens Heart is the close examination of the relationship between two couples, and four best friends. Staho relies on dialogue heavily to expose the love, passion, and friendship that come with old friends and marriages of twenty years. The scenes are simple, if not artfully designed and help contribute to the focus of conversation, subtext, and emotion displayed by the characters.
In the opening scene, the two main protagonists Lars and Susanna confront the camera and audience with their steeled stares. Lars lies in bed, while Susanna sits in an attorney's office on the day they get divorced. Lars imagines this is what Susanna will do when she finds out about him and Ann. He sees himself leaving as Susanna contemplatively before taking her own departure. When this scene occurs in reality, it is Susanna who is first to leave. Lars did not foresee exactly how sure his wife would be when she found out, and it was him who was left thinking on his decision.
Staho wastes no time in bring up the issues between Ulf and Ann, while both Susanna and Lars are steadfast in their belief. The couples sit across from their respective partners. Ann and Lars sit together in blue while Ulf and Susanna contrast each other with creme and brown. Both couples seem to match better with the opposite spouses and as the topic of adultery is breached it is clear that something will occur between one of the pairs. Blue tends to be seen as a loyal color, so when Ann and Lars begin to sympathize with each other, I was not surprised. The pure confidence of Susanna and Ulf contrasted with the quiet acceptance of Lars and Ann led me to believe that they would discover something more than the life they had tolerated.
Both couples are mirror images of each other. There is love, deep love with both of them but this love has gotten lost admits the trials of life. Both couples express a need to escape, Ulf and Ann recently returned from Tuscany and Susanna and Lars planning a vacation. For me, this love is represented in the wine they drink. Beginning with the clink of their champagne glasses, in a toast to friendship, the quickly move to a heavy red. Their conversation in addition, changes to heavier topics. For the rest of the film, both couples only drink white. Red appears again at the very end when Lars has returned and Susanna will apparently take him back. While there are many possibilities for this, one possible explanation is that red tends to be dryer, less fruity, and leaves a deep stain. White wine tends to hold the reputation of fruity, light, and of course does not stain as permanently as red, if it stains at all.
Love is like the red, since it leaves a lasting impact and is not always sweet or easy, where passion is the white. Passion is sweet but short and does not linger in the same way. Unfortunately both couples had lost their passion for their significant other and this journey of emotions chronicled in Heavens Heart exposes how love persevered with hope that the passion has also been removed.
The camera work, like the sets, is simple but powerful. The actors are greatly relied on to portray the emotion and underlying feeling of the movie. Many shots are close up, focusing on the face, leaving a lot unsaid for the audience to pick up on. When the camera does leave the close up shots, it is briefly, to expose the space between the characters. The space between the characters is vitally important to the story line. Any time big conversations are occurring, Staho relies on a straight front camera angle instead of the over the shoulder method.
Although I could see this movie being very popular in Nordic countries, I am not sure it would gain much traction in the U.S. While the characters themselves are interesting, I felt myself distanced by the conventional way in which it was shot. At times it seemed to be a Swedish soap opera. Subtle music played giving context to some of the scenes, but did not capture me emotionally. Unfortunately I felt the four-person cast, while all talented actors, was not of enough interest to deal with the rather mundane subject of adultery. Since the audience had no "happy" time to reference it was hard to sympathize with their struggles.
Brúðguminn (2008)
Love, Friendship and Birds?
White night wedding is a story about love, friendship and nature. Focusing on the loss of love between Jon and Anna (his first wife who is now deceased) and Jon's new love with Þóra. Coming up to his new wedding, Jon is haunted by the memories of his old wife, and finds that life is not all that different with one woman instead of the other.
Love is woven through almost every character in this story, but produces radically different results. Naïve, young Þóra is completely blinded buy her love of Jon. She feels it is her duty to "fix" him, viewing him like a rickety house that she needs to restore to tip top shape. I believe she believes that she truly loves him, but will find much the same road ahead of her as his first wife. In the end, Jon is not all Þóra wanted and she is left to deal with the choices she has made.
Jon himself struggles with love, but the world-weary man does not seem to have had much to begin with. At the beginning, we are presented with a seemingly loving man and a miscommunication between him and his wife. Jon seems to crave love as much as his wife needs it but seems to be incapable of giving it. We see this when his wife is distraught from hitting a bird and he is unable to give her comfort. After she had frustratingly hung up the phone, He continues to talk to the phone, saying 'dear' and 'sweetheart'. Though he may be putting on a show for the man in his office, it is most likely a show for himself and his ideals of love.
There are two characters in this film that put their love of money before their love of people, Sísí and Séra Ólafur. It is not clear how much Sísí loves her husband, but what is clear, is that Sisi loves money. She lives for money and cannot understand those around her who do not do the same. She loves her daughter, and want acceptance from her, but tries to do so by giving her 'gifts' and the feast. This insults her daughter who wants nothing to do with money and who knows her mother cannot possibly understand her love for Jon. Séra Ólafur is entrapped by his love for money as seen by his new bike helmet and his frequent trips to the offering box. Séra seems to have pestered the small community of Flatey by the small continual joke the residences make about the money needed by the church. Séra's love for money shines through when on the day of the wedding, he beseeches god to not, make him do this wedding since he does not believe in it. After finding all the money flying around outside, he seems to have found his belief and goes as far as getting carried out to see to make sure that the couple gets married.
Friendship is another major theme that is explored. The friendships between men mostly, since the women in this film all seem a bit unstable or blindly devoted to love. This friendship of the male characters is built up slowly in the film, and comes to a culmination on the white night, where Sjonni, Börkur, and Matthildur (tied there by her infatuation with Börkur) set up a late dinner for Jon. They all have a wonderful time drinking as Lárus shows up to provide Jon with the money to keep Sísí happy. Jon and Lárus have a heart felt conversation in which their friendship and respect for each other can really be seen.
Nature is another main theme, specifically explored with Anna (Jon's dead wife). The first introduction the audience gets of Anna is when she is driving through the city looking anxious. This scene is cut with birds (specifically swans) that are flying around the city and landing in ponds. These two separate scenes literally collide when Anna hits a bird that had flown in front of the car. Anna is clearly upset by this, and it seems to be the turning point for her, where she decides to leave the city. While watching this, I viewed birds as Anna's spirit or emotional self. Clearly she cannot survive in the city and therefore must leave to be back to where she was from originally. The birds appear frequently on the island, and at very strategic times. When Þóra talks with Jon about leaving Anna, the birds in the background fly up in a great flock. When Jon and Þóra have sex, the thrushes are noisily disturbed and instantly Anna knows something is very wrong. Anna seems to be much happier and better on the island, connected with what she knows and the ocean, but Jon seems incapable of seeing it. When Anna kills herself, she takes a sinking boat into the ocean going back to nature and what she considers to be the mother of nature.
While this film weaves interesting connections between love, friendship, and nature, the main character is extremely hard to identify with. He is ultimately unlovable, which might fit in with his struggle to love, but he has two women that are completely devoted to him. This works with Anna since the audience assumes that at one point he was a better husband from the comments that she makes. But with Þóra this intense infatuation makes her seem stupid and dull. I found the interactions of almost everyone in the story more dynamic and interesting than the relationship between Jon and Þóra. Overall though, it was an entertaining film that was both lighthearted and dark, keeping you glued too it trying to decipher fact from fiction.