October 11, 2001
If it's playing in your area, definitely try and catch Together, a Swedish film about a bunch of....hippies (said in best Cartman voice) and the waning days of their commune. The film opens on November 20, 1975 (coincidentally, only eight days after Rachel, with whom I saw the film, was born) with the commune celebrating the death of Francisco Franco, and focuses on the comings and goings in the house over the weeks leading up to Christmas. The story turns on the arrival of a housemember's sister and her two children; their presence exacerbates fissures within the commune that seem to have been building for years.
What makes the film so refreshing and enjoyable is the care with which Writer/Director Lukas Moodysson treats his subjects. Moodysson avoids looking down on them, and instead gives them a purpose and dignity, allowing me to identify with characters with whom I would almost certainly have little in common (if not an outright dislike). In the hands of a less-skilled filmmaker this material could have still made for a watchable movie, though definitely more condescending and less illuminating. As it is, Together is an extremely funny and enjoyable look at what happens when human nature clashes with ideology, and how we are still feeling some of the effects from a seemingly failed revolution.
As for Moodysson, I'm not counting on the Academy to invite him onstage to accept the Best Foreign Film award this year, based on his behavior at Sweden's Guldbagge awards:
"Unfortunately, his anti-elitist streak showed through at the wrong time - namely at Sweden's Guldbagge film awards, where Show Me Love [Moodysson's first film] won all the major prizes. "They were expecting me to fall on my knees and thank everybody, but I couldn't do it," he recalls. "I get extremely childish in situations where people are pretending to be something they're not. So I made a long acceptance speech where I was voicing different opinions. One was that you shouldn't eat meat, and one was that you should pay your taxes. Oh yes, and I said that films shouldn't be in a place like this. It was in the opera house and everyone was wearing tuxedos."
The audience began to boo, and Moodysson ended his oration by raising his middle finger to them and storming offstage. It was all over the next day's papers, and he spent a couple of weeks as Sweden's most hated person, which he describes as a "really interesting experience". Together won no prizes at this year's Guldbagge awards. But Moodysson found himself on the front pages again after walking out."
What makes the film so refreshing and enjoyable is the care with which Writer/Director Lukas Moodysson treats his subjects. Moodysson avoids looking down on them, and instead gives them a purpose and dignity, allowing me to identify with characters with whom I would almost certainly have little in common (if not an outright dislike). In the hands of a less-skilled filmmaker this material could have still made for a watchable movie, though definitely more condescending and less illuminating. As it is, Together is an extremely funny and enjoyable look at what happens when human nature clashes with ideology, and how we are still feeling some of the effects from a seemingly failed revolution.
As for Moodysson, I'm not counting on the Academy to invite him onstage to accept the Best Foreign Film award this year, based on his behavior at Sweden's Guldbagge awards:
"Unfortunately, his anti-elitist streak showed through at the wrong time - namely at Sweden's Guldbagge film awards, where Show Me Love [Moodysson's first film] won all the major prizes. "They were expecting me to fall on my knees and thank everybody, but I couldn't do it," he recalls. "I get extremely childish in situations where people are pretending to be something they're not. So I made a long acceptance speech where I was voicing different opinions. One was that you shouldn't eat meat, and one was that you should pay your taxes. Oh yes, and I said that films shouldn't be in a place like this. It was in the opera house and everyone was wearing tuxedos."
The audience began to boo, and Moodysson ended his oration by raising his middle finger to them and storming offstage. It was all over the next day's papers, and he spent a couple of weeks as Sweden's most hated person, which he describes as a "really interesting experience". Together won no prizes at this year's Guldbagge awards. But Moodysson found himself on the front pages again after walking out."
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