Film

Ours is a minority view on Andersson, whose commercials and infrequent features (his last was 2000’s slightly less irritating Songs from the Second Floor) have inspired near-unanimous critical acclaim. The Swedish director is, at least, distinctive: His films consist of loosely connected tableaux observing lonely, ashen grotesques. (Imagine an apocalyptic Jacques Tati—on tranquilizers.) A Dixieland score tells viewers when to laugh. You, the Living’s subject is nothing less than human happiness—the title derives from Goethe—though anyone who sees humanity in Andersson’s unhurried lumps risks charges of projecting.

The problem isn’t Andersson’s pessimism, misanthropy being a common trait among filmmakers. Andersson even offsets his film’s essential gloom with a few sunny moments. (The lone magical—and fitfully surreal—sequence depicts an imaginary wedding night in which the newlyweds’ house turns out to be on a moving train.) But Andersson’s refusal to move his actors much or his camera at all results in a deeply monotonous feel. His humor, meant to be droll—reluctant dog being dragged by leash; man sent to the electric chair for performing a party prank; grade-school teacher tearful after her husband calls her a hag—more often plays as cruel. You, the Living is a chic but suffocating experience, like choking on pickled herring. If that sounds fun to you, don’t mind us.