Du Levande (You, The Living) seems an incredible piece of work to me, partly because I understand it, and (mostly) because I don’t. Swedish director Roy Andersson takes us, the living, through the complete range of human emotions with his darkly comic, unabashedly funny, and almost unbearably depressing short, sketch-like stories surrounding characters who are oddly connected, yet essentially all alone. There’s the marching band man who likes to strike colossal drums and play giant wind instruments in his tiny drab apartment, the young girl who is madly in love with a mysterious rock star and dreams avidly of their marriage, a series of woman singing everywhere from park benches to bathtubs, unfulfilled and oddly satisfied at the same time, the psychologist who hates his job, the businessman who hates his, and a silly, yet fascinating old gent who imagines his own execution after a table clothe magic trick gone wrong. Each scene is set against a dull, faint color scheme which could make for a very uninteresting backdrop if not for the colorful characters against it. A splash of vibrant hues here and there - a pink boot, a tangerine colored bouquet – was enough to keep my attention and draw my eye to just the right elements of character and setting.

The story in this movie is very scant, and although the vignettes are woven together, they aren’t as cohesive as they could be. Part of what makes this movie so genuinely genius to me is that what elements first left me dissatisfied, I later learned to love. For instance, several of the dream sequences seemed incomplete and unfinished - as though Andersson got bored with one short story and decided to pack up and go shoot another. But as the film sunk into my subconscious, I realized that the surface skittishness of this style exemplifies exactly what profound, long lasting, soul enveloping dreams will be. After I allowed myself time to take everything in, it didn’t bother me too much that the wannabe dish-magician’s imagined execution had no climactic centerpiece; it is all too real that he should loose this thought or choose another while trying to stay awake in tedious traffic.

I saw a screening of Du Levande with a very drowsy dose of the flu, and this might be why Andersson’s pasty-faced characters appealed to me so much. But I think I would have loved this movie in good health too. Furthermore, something tells me that additional viewings of Du Levande will reveal even deeper levels of human suffering and absurdity – enough to make both the happy and the sad think twice about their states of mind. I strongly recommend this film; though you might find yourself literally quite lost in the stories on screen, you will feel more alive in the aftermath.

Liz Licorish
LizFlix@ElitesTV.com