Alive and kicking

>> Roy Andersson’s You, the Living is a worthy if inconsistent follow-up to his brilliant
Songs From the Second Floor

by MARK SLUTSKY

There’s really no other movie like Roy Andersson’s 2000 masterpiece Songs From the Second Floor. The Swedish director created a series of blackly funny, apocalyptic tableaux that were simultaneously haunting and hilarious in a style that was absolutely his own.

Each scene consisted of one unfixed wide-angle frame—a subway car, a cliffside gathering, a café—where a scene, usually macabre but often with a surprising, funny punchline, would play out. Each was a perfect little synthesis of art direction, cinematography, sound design and sensibility, and it was no surprise that Andersson was a veteran commercial director, used to creating cinematic ideas in miniature.

Well, there is actually one other movie like Songs From the Second Floor, and that would be Andersson’s new film, coming eight long years later. Du levande is the title in Swedish, and in English it’s known as You, the Living, though the French subtitled release, opening at Ex-Centris this week, is called Nous, les vivants, an interesting reversal of meaning from the English title.

It’s almost an exact continuation of the themes and ideas from the previous film, and the changes in the filmmaking technique are subtle, but present (some scenes actually employ more than one shot, for instance). Still, if Songs From the Second Floor was post-apocalyptic, with its characters seemingly traumatized by an unmentioned disaster or war, You, the Living is more explicitly (maybe too explicitly) “pre.”

The scenes don’t quite hit their marks as consistently as they did in Songs. At some points, Andersson seems to be deliberately courting frustration by building up to a punchline that never comes. Still, there are enough spectacular set pieces in You, the Living that it’s still mostly satisfying, and absolutely worth seeing in the theatre where Andersson’s craft can be best appreciated.

Two in particular stand out: a riff on the parlour trick where you pull the tablecloth off a table while the dishes remain standing, only here with completely unexpected results, and an amazing honeymoon fantasy sequence set in a moving house and featuring a rock star guitarist, a train station, and an adoring crowd. To say any more would spoil some sweet surprises. So while it doesn’t quite live up to Songs, You, the Living is still a must-see, an inventive and surprising delight.

You, the living opens this
Friday, Feb. 15

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