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You, the Living (2007)

Director: Roy Andersson

Time Out rating

Average user rating

9 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Or, you, the living dead. The motley bunch of sad-looking characters that inhabit this series of vaguely-connected episodes of modern Stockholm life that sit somewhere between Kaurismäki, Buñuel and the Far Side cartoons all look as if they died days ago: their skins are white and drooping and their eyes look dead in their sockets. That’s life, though, Swedish director Roy Andersson seems to be saying in this most maudlin of feature-length comedy sketch shows which recalls the gallows humour of his ‘Songs from the Second Floor’ (2000).

To call it deadpan is barely to hint at Andersson’s style, which he mostly applies to the world of commercials (watch them on YouTube, they’re hilarious). But just when you think the only answer to Andersson’s view of the world – alcoholic couples; depressed psychiatrists; a girl searching for a disappeared rock star who shows her a modicum of affection – is to throw yourself under one of Stockholm’s trams, he unleashes a set-piece that has you marvelling at its choreography or wondering at the sheer ridiculousness of life.

Highlights include a man who recalls a dream he had the previous night that saw him sentenced to death for the most silly of crimes and a vast university dinner that Andersson sets up purely so an elderly professor can be called out to answer a phone-call. New Orleans jazz graces the soundtrack courtesy of the miserable characters that play the drums and the tuba; their celebratory tunes conflict wildly with their melancholy lives. Emotionally, the film’s saving grace is that the good guys – a lovelorn girl, a barber taking racist abuse from a customer – get their own back, and at least some of the bad guys – a braying businessman, the racist – get their come-uppance. You won’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1962 March 27 – April 2

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User reviews of this film

tsunamiwolf said...

Posted on Jan 12 2010 23:54 i just watched it on lovefilm. i loved it and watched it with a smile from the beginning till titles. i think it's brilliant. this sense of humour is very rare in modern cinema. well done Sweden!

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amy rose said...

Posted on Jul 12 2008 12:20 strange, surreal, beautiful, disturbing but totally hilarious. definitely very scandinavian but anderson makes you sit through his scenes for so long that the way you observe them changes throughout the film... he's asking you to keep on looking after you've stopped laughing - which is what makes it so memorable and moving.. loved it. specially the wailing rocker woman.

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Ruth said...

Posted on May 14 2008 22:20 Saw this film last night. Didn't live up to expectations. Dreary and depressing with no connect. Can't imagine how people found it amusing.

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Lucy said...

Posted on Apr 15 2008 11:21 I went to see this film based on this Time Out review and the succeeding user reviews. I thought it sounded right up my street - a beautifully shot, darkly humorous life satire. But I was very disappointed. The worst film I have seen for a long time. Depressing, but not in a pensive, compassionate way, but the worst kind - empty and souless. I found the characters repellent and felt no compassion for any of them. The switching between scenes depicting each character were meaningless, only leaving the film fragmented. The techniques used for visual effect were uncapturing and only dragged the film out longer than it was worth. I was left perplexed and unsatisfied.

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Alan said...

Posted on Apr 11 2008 13:54 Impressive! Like a series of paintings. And very, very funny. The film of the year

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Nick said...

Posted on Apr 03 2008 03:53 I love Northern European black comedies and I loved many of the episodes (of over 50!) in this film. I discussed them in the pub after with my girlfriend and maybe surprisingly we liked the same things. It dragged for me in some places ans I felt I wanted more structure rather than yet another episode or vignette or whatever you want to call them. But overall I felt stimulated, intrigued, questioned, and entertained. What the feck else could you want!?

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Oli said...

Posted on Mar 26 2008 13:11 Worth seeing for the train ride alone! A surreal yet somehow ultra-real film.

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pinka said...

Posted on Mar 25 2008 15:15 It's the Scandinavian soul, this... Maybe you have to scandinavian to fully understand it. I laughted all the way trough. It's marvellous, and with the best train ride ever.

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claire said...

Posted on Feb 25 2008 17:57 I saw this movie at the glasgow film festival and it was the worst movie I have ever had the misfortune to sit through. It is dull and gray and without any form of story or connection and no sense of humour.

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