- You, the Living
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You, the Living 
Theatrical release posterDirected by Roy Andersson Produced by Pernilla Sandström Written by Roy Andersson Starring Elisabet Helander
Björn Englund
Jessika LundbergMusic by Benny Andersson Cinematography Gustav Danielsson Editing by Anna Märta Waern Distributed by Studio 24 Distribution Release date(s) Cannes Film Festival:
24 May 2007
Sweden:
21 September 2007
United Kingdom:
28 March 2008Running time 95 minutes Country Sweden
France
Germany
Denmark
Norway
JapanLanguage Swedish Budget 44 million SEK You, the Living (Swedish: Du levande) is a 2007 Swedish film written and directed by Roy Andersson. The film is an exploration on the "grandeur of existence,"[1] centered around the lives of an overweight woman, a disgruntled psychiatrist, a heartbroken groupie, a carpenter, a business consultant, an elementary school teacher with emotional issues and her rug-selling husband, among others. The basis for the film is an Old Norse proverb, "Man is man's delight," taken from the Poetic Edda poem Hávamál.[2] The title comes from a quote in Roman Elegies by Goethe, which appears as a title card in the beginning of the film: "Be pleased then, you, the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe's ice-cold wave will lick your escaping foot."
The film consists of a fluent succession of exactly 50 short sketches, most of them with a tragicomic undertone. The cast is non-professional and alienating techniques such as presenting the characters in grim make-up and having them talk directly to the camera are extensively used. The financing was troublesome and the shooting took three years to finish. The film won the Silver Hugo for Best Direction at the 2007 Chicago International Film Festival and has received positive reviews. It is the second film of an unfinished trilogy, Songs from the Second Floor being the first.
Contents
Plot
There is no central plot, but some of the vignettes connect loosely. All the stories show the essential humanity of the characters and address themes of life, existence and happiness.
The film makes repeated use of distinctive cinematic techniques. One of these is dreams and how they reflect the fears, feelings and desires of the characters. Another is the use of music, in conjunction with dialogues and editing, both as a track and performed on camera. The film starts with a monologue, which ends up being sung to dixieland jazz music being played by lone musicians, each in a different room in a different part of the city.
The stories in the film include:
- An overweight woman (Elisabeth Helander) laments her life while being completely self-absorbed. Her equally overweight boyfriend (Jugge Nohall) tries to comfort her and invites her to dinner. The woman later rejects an admirer in trenchcoat (Jan Wikbladh) who tries to give her a bouquet of flowers.
- A carpenter (Leif Larsson) has a dream in which he is condemned and executed for breaking a 200 year old china set while trying to perform the tablecloth trick.
- A pickpocket (Waldemar Nowak) steals the wallet of a high roller (Gunnar Ivarsson) at a fine restaurant before he has paid the bill.
- A psychiatrist (Håkan Angser) has lost faith in people's ability to be happy because of their selfishness. Nowadays he only prescribes pills.
- A business consultant (Olle Olson) gets his hair butchered by an upset barber (Kemal Sener) before attending a meeting where the CEO (Bengt C. W. Carlsson) dies of a heart attack.
- A sousaphone player (Björn Englund) makes money by playing in funerals, including the one of the CEO.
- A girl (Jessika Lundberg) finds her musical idol, Micke Larsson (Eric Bäckman) in a tavern. He invites her and her friend for a drink, but afterwards he gives her false directions for a band rehearsal. Later she retells a dream she had about marrying him and going away together, with people around cheering for them.
- A husband and wife (Pär Fredriksson and Jessica Nilsson) allow a fight they had to affect their respective jobs adversely.
The film ends with a montage of different characters who suddenly stop in the middle of everyday chores to look up into the sky. Dixieland music is once again played as the camera is put on the wing of an airplane. A large formation of B-52 bomber planes appear in front of the camera as they fly menacingly in over a large city.
Production
From very early on there was trouble with the financing. Andersson had to make regular visits to a pawn-shop,[3] and several times the team paused the production to make commercials, using the proceeds for the film. After being refused funding from the Swedish Film Institute, Roy Andersson accused the responsible consultant of nepotism, after the consultant instead gave the money to a film directed by his own father-in-law.[2] That film eventually ended up receiving poor reviews.[4] In the end, with eighteen organizations from six different countries involved in financing the production, the total budget landed on slightly over five million euros.[5]
For the casting, Andersson or an assistant approached people on the street and asked them to participate. Amateurs were preferred to professionals, both because the greater selection and the problem of asking renowned actors to take small parts with just a few lines.[6] The sole exception was Bengt C.W. Carlsson, who is a professional actor, in the role of the CEO.[7] Actors from Andersson's previous feature films and commercials were also reused.[6]
Crew posing on the large city model used in the film's final shot.
The film was shot in Roy Andersson's own studio in Östermalm, Stockholm. The filming of the scenes took three years to finish. "It is not the shooting itself that takes time, but the work on creating the environments. We built almost all the sets in the studio, even those that took place outdoors. Most of the time we started from Roy's sketches," said Johan Carlsson, production manager.[5] There is one single scene that wasn't shot in studio, featuring a bus shelter in heavy rain. It had to be shot outdoors because of the huge amount of running water.[2] Nothing in the film was made with computer-generated imagery. The city seen from above in the final shot was a large model built solely for that scene.[8]
The colour scape was designed to not leave too much contrast, which the director believed would create more intensity. Lighting was arranged to leave no shadows: "I want light where people can’t hide in – light without mercy."[9] Andersson is famous for his many takes of each scene, although this time he claimed it went smoother than usual: "max. 40-50 takes and sometimes under ten!"[6]
Soundtrack
For the musical score, Roy Andersson originally approached former ABBA member Benny Andersson, who composed the theme for the director's previous film, Songs from the Second Floor. Benny Andersson was however occupied with the Mamma Mia! film adaption, and declined. Some of Benny Andersson's music from Songs from the Second Floor was still rearranged and used.[7] Much of the music is played as march music and traditional jazz. "I have played this type of music myself and thought it was about time it got featured in a film. Moreover, I am fascinated by the unsuspecting music that existed in the 1930s when Nazism emerged," Andersson explained in an interview.[6]
One melody featured on several occasions is "En liten vit kanin," in English "A Little White Rabbit," a song that was recorded by Edvard Persson in the 1930s and became very popular in Sweden.[6] Another song used is the religious "Jag har hört om en stad ovan molnen," literally "I Have Heard of a City above the Clouds," originally based on a Russian folk melody and often played at funerals in Sweden. This song was originally planned to be used during the ending sequence, but eventually Andersson decided to use a more energizing jazz tune instead: "I want the audience to leave the theater with a little more lust for opposition."[7] Other songs include the German university song "O alte Burschenherrlichkeit" with Swedish lyrics by August Lindh, and the original song "Motorcykel," performed by Stockholm Classic Jazz Band and with lyrics by Roy Andersson.[10]
Release
You, the Living premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, as part of the Un Certain Regard selection.[11] It subsequently played at several other film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival on 7 September 2007 and Chicago International Film Festival on 8 October 2007, where Roy Andersson was awarded The Silver Hugo for Direction "for his extraordinary, quirky vision and humor."[12][13][14]
On 21 September 2007, the film was released in Sweden. It was sold to 50 countries,[15] including the United Kingdom where it was released on 28 March 2008. On 29 July 2009 it premiered in the United States, limited to Film Forum in New York City.[16]
Critical reception
The film was well received by Swedish critics, with an aggregate rating of 4.1 out of 5 based on 22 reviews at Kritiker.se, which made it by far the highest rated Swedish film of 2007.[17] Carl-Johan Malmberg at Svenska Dagbladet called Andersson "the black diamond of comedy in Swedish film life." Further, he compared the casting in the film to Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, and the usage of the cast to "a fastidious Samuel Beckett."[18]
The international response was also positive. As of 4 August 2009[update] it has a 100% "fresh" rating and an average score of 7.7/10 based on 28 reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.[19] Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian gave it 4 out of 5 and called it "the work of a real original – I might almost say a genius. He is radically different from anyone else, with a technical, compositional rigour that puts other movie-makers and visual artists to shame. And he really is funny."[20] US critic Justin Chang was mainly positive in an early Cannes review for Variety, although he still found that "a certain repetitiveness does eventually seep into the structure, and one could complain that the individual scenes don't ultimately build to anything (or that the arrangement of scenes is fairly arbitrary)."[21]
Awards and nominations
In addition to the awards and nominations, You, the Living was also Sweden's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 80th Academy Awards, but wasn't selected as a nominee.[22]
Award Category Name Outcome Chicago International Film Festival[13] Best Director Roy Andersson Won European Film Awards Best Director Roy Andersson Nominated Fantasporto[23] Directors' Week Award - Best Director Roy Andersson Won Ghent Film Festival[24] Georges Delerue Prize Benny Andersson Won Grand Prix Nominated Gothenburg Film Festival[25] Audience Award Roy Andersson Won Guldbagge Awards[26] Best Film Pernilla Sandström Won Best Director Roy Andersson Won Best Screenplay Roy Andersson Won Best Cinematography Gustav Danielsson Nominated Nordic Council[27] The Nordic Council Film Prize Roy Andersson, Pernilla Sandström Won References
- ^ Andersson, Roy "You, the Living." Royandersson.com. Retrieved on 2009-08-04.
- ^ a b c Dükler, Hannes (2007-08-29) "Roy Andersson Interview" (in Swedish). Nöjesguiden. Retrieved on 2009-04-18.
- ^ Kothbauer, Jacqueline (2007-05-22) "Pantbanken räddade Roy Anderssons nya film" (in Swedish). Dagens Industri. Retrieved on 2009-04-18.
- ^ Små mirakel och stora (in Swedish). Kritiker.se. Retrieved 2009-04-18.
- ^ a b "The progress with 'You, the Living'." Royandersson.com. Retrieved on 2008-03-22
- ^ a b c d e Cederskog, Georg (2007-09-23) "De förtrycktas försvarare" (in Swedish). Dagens Nyheter. Retrieved on 2009-04-18.
- ^ a b c Gustafsson, Annika (2007-09-15) "Roy Andersson släpper loss det oväntade" (in Swedish). Sydsvenskan. Retrieved on 2009-07-31.
- ^ Sigroth-Lambe, Susanne (2008-08-30) "Filmmakare med nådelöst ljus" (in Swedish). Upsala Nya Tidning. Retrieved on 2009-07-31.
- ^ Bochenski, Matt "Roy Andersson interview." Little White Lies. Retrieved on 2009-04-18.
- ^ Du levande - Musikstycken (in Swedish). Swedish Film Institute. Retrieved on 2009-08-04.
- ^ Festival de Cannes: DU LEVANDE (YOU, THE LIVING). Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved on 2009-04-15.
- ^ Seguin, Denis (2007-06-26) "TIFF announces 32 titles for September." Screen Daily. Retrieved on 2009-08-04.
- ^ a b 2007 Winners. Chicago International Film Festival. Retrieved on 2009-04-15.
- ^ Schedule for You, the Living. Chicago International Film Festival. Retrieved on 2009-04-15.
- ^ Collin, Lars (2008-03-30) "Hans filmer slår an en ton av tidlöshet" (in Swedish). Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved on 2009-08-04.
- ^ Scott, A. O. (2009-07-29) "Life: Perplexing, Painful, Precious." New York Times. Retrieved on 2009-08-04.
- ^ Du levande (in Swedish). Kritiker.se. Retrieved on 2009-04-15.
- ^ Malmberg, Carl-Johan (2007-09-21) "Komisk svart diamant" (in Swedish). Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved on 2009-04-15.
- ^ You, the Living at Rotten Tomatoes
- ^ Bradshaw, Peter (2008-03-28) "You, the Living review." The Guardian. Retrieved on 2009-04-16.
- ^ Chang, Justin (2007-05-24) "You, The Living - Cannes Film Festival Review." Variety. Retrieved on 2009-04-16.
- ^ TT Spektra (2007-09-25) "'Du levande' svenskt Oscarsbidrag" (in Swedish). Svenska Dagbladet. Retrieved on 2009-05-19.
- ^ Prémios Fantastporto 2008 Fantasporto
- ^ History: Winners & jury Ghent Film Festival
- ^ Rehlin, Gunnar (2008-01-28). "Living nabs Gothenburg award". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117979764.html?categoryId=13&cs=1. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
- ^ Guldbaggen: 2007 års vinnare och nominerade Swedish Film Institute
- ^ Prize winner 2008. Nordic Council. Retrieved on 2009-06-12.
External links
- Official website
- You, the Living at the Internet Movie Database
- You, the Living at Rotten Tomatoes
- "More real than reality" - clip from behind the scenes at Youtube
The Nordic Council Film Prize The Man Without a Past (2002) · Manslaughter (2005) · Zozo (2006) · The Art of Crying (2007) · You, the Living (2008) · Antichrist (2009) · Submarino (2010) · Beyond (2011)
Films directed by Roy Andersson Fiction feature Other The White Game · Something Happened · World of GloryCategories:- 2007 films
- Swedish films
- Swedish-language films
- Black comedy films
- Films directed by Roy Andersson
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