You, the Living

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): *****

Swedish-born filmmaker Roy Andersson began making films in the late 1960s, but to date has completed only nine films: five shorts and four features. That makes him one of the deliberate filmmakers in history, up there with Bresson and Kubrick. On top of that, it took a while for his latest film, You, the Living, to reach theaters. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007, had a single screening a year later at the San Francisco International Film Festival and then -- thanks to newly refurbished distributor Palisades Tartan -- finally opened in a couple of U.S. theaters in the summer of 2009. As far as I can tell, it's only the second Andersson film to play here, after 2001's superb Songs from the Second Floor.

All this slowness probably prevents Andersson from being the major director he deserves to be; he's like a cold soup mix of Buster Keaton, David Lynch, Jerry Lewis and Terry Gilliam, and yet he's a total original, hawking deadpan jokes as well as chilly, disheartening mean streaks in his blocky, deep-space single takes. Every frame is awash in blue-gray -- gray clothes, buildings and clouds (a thunder and lightning storm breaks up the grayness by turning it a bit darker). There's rarely a continuous cut within a scene, and camera moves are even scarcer. His disparate characters talk about dreams and nightmares, practice musical instruments (Living has a hilariously ill-fitting ragtime score) or simply wait in endless lines.

The faces range from ordinary to grotesque to (occasionally) beautiful. Some characters talk directly to the camera, some re-appear in ongoing stories, and certain themes turn up again long after you may have forgotten about them. The film has a meticulous, rigorous feel; its deeply, physically imposing shots indicate a demanding perfectionist (again, like Kubrick or Bresson). It practically requires more than one viewing to absorb it all, although it's not because the jokes are going by too fast; rather, the jokes are simply so dry. You could call it deadpan comedy or dark comedy or both, but lightweight or disposable it's not.

The excellent new DVD from Palisades Tartan starts things off with a commentary track by Roy Andersson (in Swedish with English subtitles). We also get some interview/onstage footage of Andersson in New York in September of 2009 (speaking English this time), a short documentary on him, a very cool little featurette on the movie's sets, 15 minutes of clips from earlier Andersson films, and a bunch of trailers for other Palisades Tartan releases. The movie itself comes in 2.0, 5.1 and DTS audio mixes, with optional English subtitles.