Swastikas on the tables??
Does anyone get what was up with that?
share[deleted]
MovieChat Forums > Du levande (2007) Discussion > Swastikas on the tables??
Yes. Many swedes were openly pro-nazigermany during the 30's. (IKEAs founder Ingvar Kamprad is one of them...). It isn't a secret that Hitler and his bunch of strategic advisors hoped that Sweden sooner or later would embrace Germany as a "brother", and join up on the Axis side of WWII.
Most of those nazis living in Sweden changed their opinion during the war, and the information about the holocaust. Most. But not all. But the swedish nazis had enough brains to hide their political belief. At least hide it for the rest of the society.
In the scene he does not only destroy a lot of very valuable porcelaine. He also shows the other guests what kind of people the host-family is.
Oh, I see =) Thanks!
shareIt's worth remembering that the swastika was a symbol, a sign and a decoration long before the nazis adapted it. As Freud once said, sometimes a cigar is only a cigar; the same is true of swastikas.
shareBut here it isn't a cigar. Roy Andersson is clearly making a statement about Sweden's hypocritical past and our refusal´as humans to admit our dark heritage.
share"Roy Andersson is clearly making a statement about Sweden's hypocritical past and our refusal´as humans to admit our dark heritage."
No he isn't. He's showing a tablecloth with swastikas among the designs on it in part of a long and elaborate scene depicting a fictional character's dream. If he were clearly making a statement about Sweden's hypocritical past- and you could very reasonably argue that the whole episode is doing that- then he'd have chosen clearer symbols than designs on a tablecloth. If the swastikas are a statement about Sweden's hypocritical past and our refusal´as humans to admit our dark heritage then the most obvious conclusion is that they state that you cannot take away the swastikas without destroying all the beauty and elegance in that past.
Andersson may have meant the swastikas to be there, thought it was interesting and/or irrelevant that they were there. thought it gave another implication to the scene, emphasised aspects of the scene, never even noticed them...the possibilities are endless, but we cannot assert absolutely what he meant.
Correct me if I am wrong.
The swastika is a huge intarsia firmly built in the topside of the old and huge dinner-oaktable. If you have seen the swedish artist Carl-Johan De Geers short movie "Grandmother, Hitler and I", De Geer is touching this subject.
I guess that it is not so few of the older generation in Sweden (60+) that can recall those "odd" objects that ther parents or grandparents had at home. Porcelaine with swastikas and the german eagle. Oak-furniture whith swastikas. German magazines and so on.
Objects that suddenly "disapeared" as they never existed when news about deathcamps like Treblinka and Auschwitz hit the fan.
I am very sure that there is a reason why this man gets executed because of "Exceptional grave carelessness of other persons property" (I have not seen the English translation of that frase, so please forgive my free translation of the Swedish phrase), with all the (nazi-influenced) people watching and wishing him dead.
Swastikas is NOT common in Sweden. Neither is the "sun wheel", or any hindu symbol similar to the swastika. Actually, showing or wearing the swastika in public is considered illegal, if the law could turn it to be a hate-crime.
Well, yes, there is a good reason why the man is executed: it's because it's a nightmare- his nightmare-, not reality, even within the context of the film. We don't know that the people whose crockery he destroys and who watch his trial are nazi-influenced. We know that they have valuable property two hundred years old. it's likely that their attitudes to people who destroy their property- and their tables- date back to long before the nazis came and went.
shareWell yes, that is one way to interpret that scene.
shareNo: a way not to interpret it.
I thonk that Andersson's technique- fixed focus, deep focus, immobile camera- is a deadpan presentation of a scene. Any meaning is ours, not his, and imposed to some extent.
I would agree that the meaning we take from the apparent 'swastikas', displays our receptiveness to media portrayal of what that particular sign means. Anderrson is not implying anything by the use of 'swastikas', plainly due to the static camera work. I find it comical too, that people still get angsty about the use of a swastika. OK, it was used by Hitler, a NAZI!!! (OMG!). But lets grow up now, let go of it, and use the swastika for our own personal use. Lets not forget that the swastika was originally a buddhist symbol of peace. Hitlers use of it merely demonstrates his own subjective opinion of peace, and who are we to contradict that. Lets face it, we capitalists are really not so different. The masses still conform to an ideal, Hitler merely proposed this in his own way.
shareBut lets grow up now, let go of it, and use the swastika for our own personal use.
Some people are so dense.
share
We can take a film any way we please; it looked to me like he was making a point.
Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.
But not much of a way given the director's explicit statements on the scene.
CB
Good Times, Noodle Salad
Actually (up until 1940 or something at least) they were very common as they symbolised high current electricity. There are still tramlines around with them cast in the metal of the wheel housings. Obviously not on the newer ones.
So they symbolised neither NSP or good luck in Sweden, rather the opposite if you got to close. ;)
"There is no time like downtime."
denial is not a river in Egypt...
my ymdb page: http://www.shompy.com/steppenwolf/l42849_ukuk.html
Roy Andersson himself says that it's a statement on the Swedish history "that we do anything to cover up. The truth."
share...but the truth that is uncovered here is more than two hundred years old and so existed long before the nazis. I think you may be right in thinking the swastika is deliberately chosen. If so, I think it's a fault- a facile and not very relevant bit of symbolism. There should be a cinematic equivalent of Godwin's Law- use a nazi symbol and it's a bad mark.
shareThe porcelain is two hundred years old but not the table.
Roy Andersson says himself on the audio commentary for the film that it's a reference to the Nazi sympathizers of Sweden of the WWII period. A history Sweden still hasn't fully confronted as there is still information about this not being released to the public.
"So the censors are constantly pushing and I push back." - Jia Zhangke
Like I said:
...but the truth that is uncovered here is more than two hundred years old and so existed long before the nazis. I -now- think you may be right in thinking the swastika is deliberately chosen. If so, I think it's a fault- a facile and not very relevant bit of symbolism. There should be a cinematic equivalent of Godwin's Law- use a nazi symbol and it's a bad mark.
I still stand by that. If Andersson deliberately used swastikas for their nazi symbolism it was an obvious and vulgar thing to do and diminishes the film.
You come off as a closet racist.
-ClintJCL
http://clintjcl.wordpress.com/category/reviews/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/clintjcl
Every detail in production design is there for a reason, whether its a cinematographic reason (i.e. colour and filling the frame) or merely the director making a statement, each detail would have been meticulously checked, so yes Andersson would have known the swastikas were there and probably wanted them to be. There is definitely a reason for them to be there whether it's simply to add an off key surreal element/atmosphere to the story or because he's making a statement.
shareYou are incorrect. On the DVD I am watching the director's commentary makes it quite clear he is referring to Sweden's Nazi sympathies during the 1930's and 1940's that have never been honestly dealt with. He also mentions that there is abundant evidence in archives in Sweden that have not been opened and remain classified at the time of his commentary made in or after 2007. There is no room at all for denial here. The failed magic trick is intended to reveal the ugly truth about the upper class hosts of the gathering.
CB
Good Times, Noodle Salad
Also Ingmar Bergman was a swedish nazi-supporter for a while.
share[deleted]
Heh, the scene where the old (senile) general (the richest man in Sweden, "owning the larger part of the swedish forests") is celebrated on his 101:th birthday.
In the end of the scene, h is telling the military reprentative to "Say hello to Göring!", and saluting the regiment song with a outstretched arm (heiling).
...but that is surely only coincidents. I mean, the "heiling" is an old roman tradition, and Göring could be anyone with the same name as the late german second commander during the nazi era.
(sorry for the sarcastic tone, ginafonyo, my comment is actually directed to the ones arguing about the buddhist (or old norse) use of the swastika and/or suncross)
Yes, on one level I know we're meant to consider a film in isolation, on its own merits. But sooner or later you have to call a halt and say Andersson = Songs From 2nd Floor = Nazi baggage = deliberate choices. Every movie begins on the zero X-axis (to draw a mathematical parallel) and is the product of a bundle of positive, unavoidable choices on what objects to put in the frame, just like a theatre director starting with an empty wooden stage. Here, it's semiotics in the truest sense of the word.
Not sure I understand why static camera reduces the significance of directors' choices. The OMG-let's-grow-up-and-use-the-swastika-for-our-own-purposes comment is understandable on a very limited level: don't let Hitler's hijacking of symbols intimidate us in the 21st century. But it's likely to have been naïve and flawed here. I can't speak much because I can't even remember the swastikas in the scene. As I understand it, the symbol was stamped on the tablecloth itself. Well, please. Worker thinks he can eradicate Nazi leanings from Swedish bourgeoisie at a stroke but their entire way of life is linked to these leanings and the judiciary punishes him for trying. The first (and only lone) attempt to assassinate Hitler was by a worker. End of story. Why do people dance around, moving heaven and earth to convince us that they and the director are of one (rarefied) mind? It's disingenuous. Of course you can 'take away the swastikas without destroying the beauty and elegance of the past'.
Granted, there are a whole handful of 'possible' motivations, if we really wriggle and squirm to identify them. And the older and more solid an object is that bears the swastika the more justified one is in asserting its right to remain on display. If the swastika were carved in stone on the frontispiece of an ancient mansion pre-dating the Nazis there would be less talk about Nazis (and the director would conceivably be making yet another, more anodyne comment about swastikas by virtue of the fact that he could have chosen a mansion without such a frontispiece, had he so wished). The fact is it's very difficult not to be JUSTIFIABLY assumed to be making a statement when one is a director. And precisely because the characters in this movie are deliberately flat and we know nothing about their characters or motives we have nothing else to go on except the director's choice and his history as a filmmaker.
Another thing: you notice that talk is only ever of the swastika, not of any of the other rune symbols. And not because it was a symbol of peace, either; in fact it symbolised a darwinistic type of strength. In my opinion, until there is as great a difference between a future age and the Nazi period as there was between the Nazi period and the Dark Ages I don't think we will see a full rehabilitation of the swastika.
Ps, I live in Germany, for what it's worth. (Not necessarily much)
"No he isn't. He's showing a tablecloth with swastikas among the designs on it in part of a long and elaborate scene depicting a fictional character's dream. If he were clearly making a statement about Sweden's hypocritical past- and you could very reasonably argue that the whole episode is doing that- then he'd have chosen clearer symbols than designs on a tablecloth. If the swastikas are a statement about Sweden's hypocritical past and our refusal´as humans to admit our dark heritage then the most obvious conclusion is that they state that you cannot take away the swastikas without destroying all the beauty and elegance in that past.
Andersson may have meant the swastikas to be there, thought it was interesting and/or irrelevant that they were there. thought it gave another implication to the scene, emphasised aspects of the scene, never even noticed them...the possibilities are endless, but we cannot assert absolutely what he meant."
Yes it does. Even Roy Andersson himself says that.
Yes what does what? What does Andersson say?
Like I said:
...but the truth that is uncovered here is more than two hundred years old and so existed long before the nazis. I -now- think you may be right in thinking the swastika is deliberately chosen. If so, I think it's a fault- a facile and not very relevant bit of symbolism. There should be a cinematic equivalent of Godwin's Law- use a nazi symbol and it's a bad mark.
I still stand by that. If Andersson deliberately used swastikas for their nazi symbolism it was an obvious and vulgar thing to do and diminishes the film.
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Anti-facist? You think he favours compulsory plastic surgery for ugly people then?
There's a certain hypocrisy in someone who makes a very good living directing advertisements making simplistic anti-capitalist statements anyway; as the actual influence of fascism has been much less than that of many other political philosophies- in Sweden, most notably, social democracy with a strong elitist element- for sixty years, and as fascism didn't exist for the first hundred years of the dinner service in the dream then the use of the swastika as a symbol is hypocritical and simple-minded.
I don't know if I have missed some very vital part of the dinner-scene, or why it is I don't understand your point at all.
You write: "and as fascism didn't exist for the first hundred years of the dinner service in the dream then the use of the swastika as a symbol is hypocritical and simple-minded."
Please help me understand what you mean. The dinner service that is hundreds of year old? Do you refer to the porclaine that is placed on the table? The porclaine that has not a single visible swastika on it, but is placed on a large oaktable with a HUGE swastika as intarsia on top of it.
...a type of furniture that was not so uncommon in a rich nationalsocialists home at that time.
About the social democrats elitism and their long grasp over Sweden. Let us not forget from which country Hitler adopted the idea of eugenics. ...and that it were the social democrats here in sweden that founded the worlds first Institute for Eugenics ("Rasbiologiska Institutet", Uppsala 1922). And that it wasn't until 1958 that the institute got it name changed to "Institute of Medical Genetics". The biggest swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet" (social democrat) were openly pro-nazi during the war.
But you have a very good point about Andersson and how he have made his living during the last ten years. Profiting on making TV-comercial ads.
I made several points at different times, so I'll clarify some of them. Sorry, dinner service in England means a set of plates designed to go together- the two hundred year-old porcelain. The dreamer pulls the tablecloth away and smashes the porcelain- it's age and value carefully emphasised- and reveals a swastika previously hidden by the pristine table cloth. If the porcelain is two hundred years old then it- and what it symbolises- dates back to long before the existence of nazism so it's absurd to use a swastika as a symbol of what is rotten in the state of Sweden over two hundred years. It's also a banal and obvious symbol of evil anyway.
"...a type of furniture that was not so uncommon in a rich nationalsocialists home at that time."...except how many rich national socialists were there in Sweden? Not people who were emotionally attracted by nazism, but active, conscious nazis? How many such tables were made?
Eugenics was not a uniquely Swedish or nazi obsession: many socialists were eugenecists- there's an interesting discussion of humane eugenecism in J.B.S. Haldane's Possible Worlds. Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells both argued for eugenic policies. Several US states had eugenicist compulsory sterilisation programmes and the immigration laws that rstricted admission to the USA in the 1920s were inspired by dysgenecist fears.
"The biggest swedish newspaper "Aftonbladet" (social democrat) were openly pro-nazi during the war. " Well, the nazis were a national socialist party. They restricted caapitalism too, so announcing that someone is anti-capitalist and anti-nazi is not wholly logically consistent.
I am- reluctantly- persauded that Andersson did mean the swastika to be Symbolically Significant and- as far as I'm concerned- it makes the scene worse than it would otherise be.
[deleted]
Been on the gin again, Gina? Precisely what is the capitalist/facist mentality? As I pointrd out, nazism had socialist elements. Do you deny that they called themselves national socialists? As for "....an organisation that has no respect for human rights....that will destroy workers unions......that will murder immigrants....that will murder gay people......that will murder disabled people", well the Soviet and Chinese CPs had much less respect for human rights and murdered many more people than the USA- especially homosexuals and independent trade unionists- and locked disabled people away in barrack-like institutions or starved them to death- no prejudice there, they starved several million non-disabled people to death as well- and the Swedish Social Democrats were very enthusiastic about sterilising disabled people. However, they murdered them progressively so presumably that was all right then.
Which immigrants did the USA murder? After all, the USA was based on mass immigration. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century as much as one percent of the population of Sweden alone emigrated to the USA every year. The USSR didn't have many immigrants- except when they incorporated whole countries without consulting the people concerned- but they are reckoned to have murdered or deported about a third of the population of those countries.
Which Jewish Socialist Prime Minister did Hitler depose in 1939? You're showing your usual historical accuracy there, Gina. Hallo, Gina Stalin- or would you prefer Gina Goebbels? You use the same debating techniques as both.
The implication of the swastika as a nazi symbol on the table is that the only thing wrong with Sweden in the last couple of hundred years was support for nazism by a few unspecified rich people. So- as nazism was defeated over sixty years ago- presumably Andersson- And Gina- thinks everything is fine now. Or were there secret nazis hidden in Sweden two hundred years ago?
[deleted]
Come on Gina, my historically ignorant little pal, what makes you think Leon Blum was Prime minister of France in 1939? What made you think Hitler deposed him? How, precisely did Hitler depose him? When, precisely, did Hitler depose him? You do know what depose means, don't you?
So, any bully- including bullies who proclaim their socialism- are actually fascist/capita;ists. Pity Lenin Stalin and Mao didn't know. Even if your claim were true, what was the mentality of the bully in the periods before capitalism and/or fascism were invented?
As for your claim about so-called socialist states, perhaps they did fulfil their potential- the potential of people who knew what was best for everyone else and were entitled to kill them if they disagreed. Unfortunately this mentality is not unique to fascists or so-called socialists, 'though the people who think in that way often claim they are opposing fascism or some other fashionably-hateful belief system which makes exactly the same claim.
"Yes. Nazism was called National Socialism. In Britain we call it New Labour. In China it was called Communism as it was in Russia. In America they call it Democracy. They all operate an exploitative capitalist system though. American/European style is free-market and China/Russia use state run capitalism. That is where the bullying comes in. It stifles dissent. Forces the workers to work cheap. Invades other countries and steals their resources. Like old fashioned Imperialism really. PR by Saatchi and Saatchi. African coups by the SAS and the Thatcher family. "
You really are simple-minded. Just to deal with a few of your assertions: How many concentration camps does New Labour run? How many of their political opponents have been murdered? The claim of fascism, Nazism and communism was that they were absolutely above the law whereas the governments of Britain and the USA are forced- reluctantly sometimes-to obey the law. Are resources resources if the people who have them do not know they are resources? As the S.A.S. were not behind the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea- it would have been better-run if they were- and as the claim that one member of the Thatcher family was behind it is being made by a man with a vested interest in saying what will keep hm alive, we'll leave that aside, but- just out of interest- would it be less bad if Equatorial Guinea were run by an honest and competent foreign oil company or if it were run by a murderous and corrupt native government?
"In the last 150 years Americas form of capitalism/imperialism has killed 250,000,000 people and is still rising. "
Really? You do have some evidence, don't you?
"It would be nice if more people agreed that fascism is totally unnacceptable."
It would be better if more people didn't think that fascism was the only thing that is totally unnacceptable and if they didn't think that if something is totally unnacceptable it must be fascism. In both cases they are producing conditioned responses- unthinking and immediate responses with little or no connexion to rslity, but, then, Andersson- an advertisement-maker like the Saatchi Brothers- is a specialist in producing just those responses.
"You can call me ginafonyo. It's Mandinka. Gina - devil. Fonyo - wind. It means whirlwind"
Ah- a lot of hot air going round in circles, in short, then, Gina.
[deleted]
[deleted]
You didn't lie about Blum. You were wrong in what you believed. Liars probably do less harm than people who believe things that aren't true. I have seen Songs- like I said, one of the things I dislike about Andersson is the way he uses "the nazis" as an all-purpose symbol of evil. To habe a carefully defined sign of Absolute Evil is also a very good way of evading looking at one's own responsibilty.
shareIf you don't like personal insults, Gina, you shouldn't have used them to spice up your arguments; like the saying goes, if you can't take it, don't try to dish it out.
I have seen Le Chagrin et la pitié a few times. It is a fine and moving film. You might find it useful, and you will definitely find it informative, to google Leon Blum yourself. You might also like to google for precisely when and why the Germans invaded France. I will only say that their motive was not to depose Leon Blum, but, then, they had no need to.
New Labour did not destabilise Sierra Leone: they intervened- or, rather, got the British army to intervene- in a singularly nasty civil war and installed a government which appears to be comparatively honest, peaceful by local standards and not as murderous as the "militias" they replaced. Personally I think it a pity that that intervention succeeded as it gave Tony Blair a taste for muscular morality which led him to intervene elsewhere when it made no difference to the UK which bunch of foreigners murdered which bunch of foreigners and where the cost to Britain was higher. That applies to the ones you mention and in what was Yugoslavia as well.
What is your evidence that David Kelly was murdered, rather than killing himself because he was caught up in a rather stupid and very nasty game of publicity? Have you taken it to the police? If not, why not?
If "The death camps are called Africa, S. America, the Middle East and Asia" and are allegedly controlled by London Stock Exchange- I had no idea the CCP, for example, was a subsidiary of British companies- which ones, by the way?- why has their population increased at such an astonishing rate over the last fifty years? It seems a remarkably incompetent way to run a death camp.
"The SAS and Thatcher comment was an allusion to 400 years of European meddling in Africa. Since i was born in the 1950s Britain had the opportunity to make a lasting peace but instead chose to retain the class system, accomodate the commercial sector, posture with nuclear weapons, start gun-running in Yemen, threaten China, threaten Russia, partition India, de-stabilise the Middle East, de-stabilise Africa, de-stabilise S. America, have a million people murdered in Indonesia for looking for equality and to this day they continue to ransack the globe with impunity."
You show your usual historical accuracy here. To take only a couple of examples, Indians in the 1940s- before your birth, it seems- chose to partition India when they gained independence and murdered a couple of million of each other while they were at it. The British having- foolishly- guaranteed Malaysia's independence and territorial integrity against the Indonesia of Sukarno, backed by the Indonesian C.P., had no objection to an Indonesian military coup which was followed by the murder of about a million Indonesian communists. There is no reason to think the indonesian Communist Party was any more enthusiastic about freedom than any other communist party in the whole of history. The SAS weren't around four hundred years ago, in fact. No doubt the Thatchers' ancestors were. There is rather more than four hundred years of African meddling in Europe- how else did the human race get to Europe in the first place?
If "All governments are fascistic and controlling", why make a fuss about one government more than another? presumably- even in your eyes- some governments aren't quite as "fascistic and controlling" as others and so preferable-or less unpreferable. Why prefer Leon Blum and his "fascistic and controlling" Popular Front government, rather than Hitler and his "fascistic and controlling" nazi government? In fact, as Karl Marx said in one of his few lucid moments, there comes a point when quantity becomes quality and while the potential for fascism- or authoritarianism or totalitarianism- is inherent in government it is only when a government has a certain proportion of the prerequirements that it can be called fascist. A government can be brutal and murderous without being fascistic and controlling.
"Your comment, " Are resources resources if the people who have them do not know they are resources?" has got me beat pal."
I'm not at all surprised. You're so easily beat, pal.
"Fascism is totally unnacceptable"
Not to fascists, however.
"Socialism, to my mind anyway, is about being sociable, co-operative, caring, sharing and loving."
Well, can you cite any practical example of socialism in reality, then? Obviously, actually existing socialism never managed to achieve socialism to your mind. The actual examples- Soviet socialism, National socialism, Maoism, those fine exemplars of being sociable, co-operative, caring, sharing and loving, Pol Pot and The Kims, father and son, for example- all involved murdering or otherwise killing tens of millions of people who got in the way of the radiant future- or do you regard that as an acceptableprice to pay?
"People like you, who appear hateful and unable to share, are a real worry. What is bothering you?"
Well, on this thread, what is bothering me is Andersson's use of a swastika to symbolise what was and is wrong with Sweden. It's an attempt to elicit a conditioned reflex, to make people react without thinking- an advertising man's gimmick- that avoids facing anything to with Sweden itself and the acquiescence of the Swedish people in their supposed problems. Blame the nazis and no need to worry. It's cheap, gimmicky and unworthy of Andersson's skills and talents.
"Did you like the bit in You The Living where the big woman wearing a german helmet straddles a little grey man who was had his pension fund robbed by the bankers? I hope it wasn't too anti-fascist/anti-capitalist for you? "
Well, we don't know that the "little grey man"- the tuba player actually- had had his pension fund robbed by the bankers. He merely said so without giving evidence. The interesting aspect of that scene- as with many others in the film- is that the couple are talking but not listening. They completely fail to communicate with one another and do not even realise they are not communicating- perhaps cannot imagine communicating.
It wasn't a German helmet. It was a Swedish helmet. It's a Swedish film, remember.
[deleted]
"I'd say Hitler invaded France at the behest of the capitalist bosses to stop the Russian Revolution from spreading around the world and that the SAS was around 400 years ago but was called something diffurint. "
Precisely. You are concerned with what you'd say, not with the actual evidence.
[deleted]
I found the swastika scene rather weird... Along with the invading planes...
The Joker: You prefer a magic trick, instead? Watch me make this pencil disappear
Well i think that it is quite obvious that with swastikas on the table under the precious porcelain Andersson pointed at the xenophobic and thus totalitarian sentiment under the seemingly very tolerant and affluent Swedish society and social-democratic traditions (remember, porcelain is MORE THAN 200 years old). That Swastika sequence goes hand in hand with that arrogant "typical middles class swede" customer who is very rude to the barber with Arabic origins.
I don`t think that it is literal reference to Nazi Germany rather it is merely used as a metaphor to narrow minded and biased mood in general. And looking for historical details is just unnecessary cause we are discussing here a peace of art not article of an encyclopedia.
allenrogerj:
you are wrong. just admit that it was an oversight. theres no problem with that. you didnt notice the swasticas (by the way everyone, it was not a small detail on the tablecloth as others have guessed if they missed it. these were huge and they were built into the design of the table weather by an inlet of wood or a staining technique). that fine, but to say that he may or may not have intented to include that image in the film is not honest on your part. you know that this film is impeccably made and there is no way that he could have accidentally allowed this to slip in.
Now what you can assert is your idea of what the swastica means. if you want to look at it as a peace symbol from hundreds of years ago you can. but the bottom line is those swasitca were included on purpose. and the swastica would add nothing and mean nothing if it is just a symbol disattached from the modern interpretation. In actuality the unveiling of the swasticas is the punctuation in the the comedic scene. if the scene merely showed the china breaking it would not have been very funny cuz the man already told us thats what happened in the dream. the surprise or punchline of the scene is what is unveiled as his parlor trick goes wrong. he has exposed the family and its deplorable past (or present if these still hold the belief). the point is you can hide your past but it will (or can) eventually be revealed despite your efforts. in this sense as many have stated
and to say that it weakens the scene or the movie because you didnt get/see the swasticas is childish. just admitt it was an oversight and move on. do not make statements about the cinematography saying that he didnt mean to show us this. that if he wanted t he would have done what? zoomed in on the swasticas or panned over and focused in on them? I guess the guy eating popcorn was just an accident too. he didnt zoom in and make that guy the center of the frame and so it wasnt his intent? or even better, if it was intentional it makes it a flaw? come on.
oh yeah and stop asserting that the table is over 200 years old. there is not a single shred of evidence for this. you made that up. the china is over 200 years old, not the table. the age of the table is not mentioned. the mention of the 200 year old china is used to show value, whether it be sentimental or monetary. stating the age of the table would mean nothing because it wasnt destroyed , unlike the china. In fact the only clue we have about the age of the table comes from the swasticas. no its not a neolithic indian artifact. its more likely about 60-70 years old.
and do not make blankets statements such as your comment about use of a swastica being vulgar. in this case it is not. its vulgar to flaunt it to create power where none exists, but to use it in sucha a way as a comment about the history of the swedish upper class is by no means vulgar. you do not write the rules of cinema. just admit that you didnt notice/see the swasticas or just didnt get it. its fine. now its been explained and we can move on. your assertions make you you seem either extremely close minded or perhaps you are just a troll.
http://www.rockymagasin.se/Artiklar/film/kompromisslos/
This is a link to an interview in Swedish, from around the time "Du Levande" came out, where Andersson talks a bit more about why he alludes to Nazism in his films. "Sånger..." and "Du Levande" are about the general mood in Sweden, which has to be taken into consideration in every analysis. And their symbolism isn´t THAT convoluted or hard to understand. Selected quotes in translation:
"...we have a Nazi past in Sweden that we´d rather not talk about. But the Nazism was there along with an eagerness to cooperate with Germany. ... These Nazi views live on. There is still an outlook on existence and the human being that is extremely fascistic."
This is what the worker´s dream is about. It connects the views of Fascism to more generalized phenomena, like strict power hierarchies and materialistic greed.
My two cents... The swastikas were obviously deliberate and well-hidden under the tablecloth... When people realize what he'll do, someone even says "maybe we could eat first," probably knowing the 'secret' will be uncovered, literally.
Also... the chubby guy with the dog, wears a t-shirt with two black S's on it and the woman keeps telling him to leave. But that she might join him later... Again, I'd say that's a comment about collaboration and mixed-feelings and what-not.
Then, the woman praying non-stop, talks about governments hiding the truth from its citizens, and everyone is ignoring her, they just want to leave...
I'd say these 3 things are definitely related, it's not just a coincidence.
Then there's the dream of the town being bombed and, finally, bombers (who actually looked like Tupolevs to me... which would make sense: Russians attacking Nazi-sympathizers? But that might be taking it too far. Or not.)
The bomb planes were clearly B-52's. In the commentary he spews out his hate of USA's foreign policy, and domestic policy for that matter; The death penalty with it's rituals like shouting 'dead man walking', Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib etc.
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe..." - Roy Batty, Blade Runner
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The director commentary on the DVD makes it absolutely clear it is a statement about the pro-Nazi past of Sweden that has never been adequately acknowledged. He also mentions that this denial extends to the time of the film (c.2007) in voluminous archives yet unopened that remain classified over 60 years after the events. The magic trick fails to work, but succeeds in revealing the real sympathies of the upper class hosts of the gathering.
Can anyone seriously suggest that Roy Andersson, amid all the social commentary embedded in this film put such an image front and center of a major scene by chance e.g. that table just happened to be sitting around the prop department, or just because he liked it (and it would be quite amazing if he did)? While we do not know that date of manufacture of the table and thus cannot say much about intended meaning for the swastikas and the table itself, we can be quite certain about the director's intended meaning for the swastikas in the film.
CB
Good Times, Noodle Salad
To anyone who think Sweden has a nazi past. Nazis were never popular in Sweden and the nazi party never had any support, but Sweden always had close trade relations to Germany. Sweden also bought the lie about the promise of no more wars in Europe. The great war (ww1) was so bad everyone thought it could never happen again. Sweden was a heavy actor in League of Nations which focused on peaceful cooperation in Europe. The Swedish prime minister Hjalmar Branting even got a nobel peace price because of Swedens contribution towards peace after The great war. The League of Nations encouraged member nations to disarm their military to reduce the risk of future conflict. This left Sweden and many other European countries open for invasion once Hitler rebuilt his own army.
So it was not cowardice or love for Hitler that made Sweden sit out the war, it was the huge investments in the promise of peace, the deliberate effort to disarm, pragmatism and the typical Swedish refusal to acknowledge problems to not worsen the conflict. After WW2 the League of Nations disbanded because it had failed to secure peace in Europe.