Am I the only one who found this film tiresome? - Du levande (2007) Discussion

[–] Apollinaire 16 years ago

I did not see it as a comedy, in fact i didn´t laugh once during the whole movie. Some of the scenes lacked visual strength, but as a whole I consider it a masterpiece. I do not find it particulary scandinavian, but it is still a depressing movie, containing some of the most bautiful and horrific scénes ever made. Like the newlyweds in the moving house, come on, you have to admit that scene was pretty good at least!

Good evening, I am the Devil. But you can call me Toby, if you like.

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[–] SusanMarina 16 years ago

The film was billed in the London Film Festival Bulletin as "the funniest film in the Festival". The audience was howling with laughter throughout. Director, Mike Leigh (sitting two seats from me) told me to my face afterwards, "you have no sense of humour". Afraid it was the scene with the newlyweds in the house that finally pushed me hear the edge - slow pacing, static camera, same lighting and colour palette throughout - Don't think I've ever felt so claustrophobic in a cinema in my life. Don't know much about Andersson, the person. Does he suffer a bit from OCD? That's not a facetious question, but a serious one.

Isn't it fun we can have different reactions to the same work of art?

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[–] Apollinaire 16 years ago

If someone described this film as "The funniest in the festival" I would be really dissapointed; because it isn´t funny, more sad and melancholic in my opinion.

Andersson suffers from a lot of things, he´s a pedantic perfectionist obsessed with details no one will notice. (Did you know all the scenes from this movie are built in sets at his home studio, not a single one is shot on location). He´s very paranoid to be frank (he believes all the film critcs are out to hurt him). A bit like "The scandinavian Kubrick"!. But he´s seems to be a very nice person from what I´ve heard.

Good evening, I am the Devil. But you can call me Toby, if you like.

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[–] SusanMarina 16 years ago

Thanks for telling me more about Andersson. There was something very protective about Mike Leigh's other comments, which did make me wonder later if there were some problems I didn't know about - and you have mentioned some of them. What else do you know about him? I'm curious now. Yeah, I'd just suffered a major death in my family and so, when I ordered the Festival tickets, just wanted to see things that were fairly light or things I could handle. As I said, the audience was howling with laughter, but I just felt claustrophobic and didn't find his static direction funny or even evocative of depression - it was just static, boring, and self-indulgent. The timing of the magic trick was hilarious though. It should have been left at that.

Went to a great discussion of the relationship between the director and editor - Ken Loach is now my hero - what a very gentle person he is - and I loved what he said and his process in making a film. Ran into Mike Leigh at another film this afternoon and he gave me a sort of sheepish smile - I think he may have felt a little bad about what he said on Sunday. We exchanged a very few words and let it go at that. I do love the film festival.

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[–] Apollinaire 16 years ago

"There was something very protective about Mike Leigh's other comments"

What were his other comments? Is he a friend of Andersson?

More trivia: When Roy Andersson made his second feature "Giliap" in 1975 it got completely torn apart by critics and audiences alike; Roy got so pissed of that he quit directing and started making commercials for TV instead. it took 25 years before he released his next feature length picture "Songs from the second floor (which won the jury price at Cannes). "Songs from the second floor" is only an hour and a half long, but it took 5 years of shooting to complete (due to Anderssons brilliant pedantic nature).

He is also afraid of flying, not because he´s afraid of the actual flying part, but because he thinks the customs and police look at him like a potential terrorist. That´s pretty over-the-top.

Good evening, I am the Devil. But you can call me Toby, if you like.

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[–] SusanMarina 16 years ago

Hi. I just had the impression he felt very protective and don't know if that was in a personal capacity as a friend or whether it was in a professional capacity as one director toward another. Ran into him yesterday at another film and we just smiled and said a few words and went on our way. He seems a nice man.

Sounds like Andersson is fighting his own demons in his life - have to give the guy credit for not crawling in a hole, but he's still out there fighting, still directing in his own style and winning awards. I didn't like his film and I don't like his style at all, but that one bit with the magic trick was perfectly timed and hilarious.

I wouldn't go out of my way to see another of his films, but I would go out of my way to see him in person and hear what he has to say about that style and his choices as a director.

Saw some great films lately and one that got terrible reviews (I was told) in the States, but I loved it - the new film on Elizabeth I with Cate Blanchette, Geoffrey Rush and Clive Owen. The director said he saw it as an opera and it comes across that way - the costumes alone... Hope he makes it a trilogy. As he said, Elizabeth stood silently for 12 straght hours before her death, afraid that if she stopped standing, she would die. No one knows what she was thinking during those 12 hours. A well-made film of the end of her life would be fascinating.

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[–] roell29 16 years ago

I don't doubt he would be treated like a terrorist. Going up into the sky in a glorified tin can every day requires a certain degree of faith and trust in traditional values. Their lives depend on every member of their team taking their lives and responsibilities seriously at every moment. Some of them would no doubt feel personally threatened by someone who views life as a black comedy, and who makes movies skewering those values they depend on for all to see. Imagine a maintenance engineer as a Roy Andersson character, for instance, who might at any moment lapse into a fit of melancholic reverie about the meaninglessness of life and not be bothered about that stripped bolt that needs changing.

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[–] thebaseballfield 16 years ago

But it IS funny! The funniest movie of the year. next to superbad. sad and melancholic, yes. but who says a movie can't be both?? I don't know about other countries. but here in sweden we're used to laugh at artists like jan stenmark and the "klas katt & olle ångest" cartoons. and bergman. Ingmar Bergman was one of the funniest guys in sweden. have you read his books?? his bitterness and dry, dark sense of humour was the same as roy andersson and stenmark and the others. brilliant. and please notice that I'm NOT beeing sarcastic. it IS a funny movie. VERY funny.

-he didn't say science,
he said pie-pants!

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[–] chocosky 16 years ago

I just saw the film a few hours ago and besides a couple of times I really didn't laugh much. there were some humorous scenes but all together it left a very melancholic aftertaste. which doesn't mean there was no sarcasm - but: I still wouldn't call the film FUNNY. At all.

I just think it's interesting how different people react so differently to this.
and maybe you guys up there really do have a different sence of humor. ;)

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[–] dengholm 16 years ago

Why do everyone says scandinavian...it´s swedish...if a movie comes from USA I don´t say ...have you seen that north-american movie? I´m really sick of that all americans keep on saying scandinavian about swedish stuff!!! Hey we have a history here as well...we fought the danish, for hundreds of years!!! They have nothing o do with our films and we have nothing to do with theirs...we are separated countries just as USA and canada!!

And this movie rocks...something wrong with you!!

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[–] imdb-7532 16 years ago

Maybe that's the common effect when an audience is not sure how to handle a movie. No one really gets it, one or a few starts laughing because they noticed something resembling humour, and then the rest of the audience follows because they think they're "supposed to" break out in a hysteric laughter marathon.
Not the first time to happen.
(I have not seen "Du Levande").

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[–] drummeln 16 years ago

How come that there allways is a 45-55 year old woman in the audience that starts to laugh nervously on the edge to be hysterical, when there is a scene that is touching and filled with more or less hidden anxiety.
(regardless of the movie)

And this hysterical woman manages to drag with her some other nervous people, while other people in the audience turn their heads and wonder what the hell the person is finding funny in the scene.

I mean, laughing at an old woman that has lost contact with the rest of the world through alzheimers, or a person being "hushed" by one of the executioners while he is strapped into the electric chair?

Do they laugh at scenes with wife beatings and childrape too?

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[–] stevanmichel 16 years ago

"Isn't it fun we can have different reactions to the same work of art?"

Susan Marina end her comment with this, And I would like to add: even the same person's reaction will be different from day to day. From an insider I heard that director Anderson was to depressed to come to the screenings at the Rotterdam Film Festival in Januari (2008), being dissapointed that this movie didn't became the huge box office hit he expected it to be. If this is true, I don't know, but after seeing a few of the first scenes of this beautifully made movie, this dry information combinied with the dry humor I saw in front of me got me in the right mood.

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[–] drummeln 16 years ago

I agree. There was a lot of scenes where I felt sadness for the characters, and was touched by how Roy managed to capture the situation.

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[–] Niffiwan 16 years ago

I was looking forward to it because I expected something a little like Tati's "Play Time". Although there were some brilliant scenes (like the first one, and my absolute favourite: the one where the band practices in a room while a huge storm rages outside), ultimately I was left with the feeling that the film really didn't have anything to say.

In "Play Time", Jacques Tati also abandoned narrative and characters, and he also left his camera at a distance to let us observe the events, but "Play Time" is driven by a strong idea and heads purposefully toward a conclusion. It is a love song to humanity and a rebellion against the sterile modern perfection meant to restrict it. And it's extremely funny.

For whatever reason, "You, the Living" as a whole simply didn't resonate with me, despite certain brilliant scenes. It seemed very self-conscious and contrived, and far too dependent on artificial symbolism.

Why was the girl's predictable loss so important, anyway? A lot of time was spent on her lament, and I have no idea what for. I really could not muster much sympathy for her as she cried about what was basically a teenage crush.

___ __ _
My blog about Russian animation: http://niffiwan.livejournal.com/

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[–] dengholm 16 years ago

Maby thats what you suppose to feel..for her?

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[–] Niffiwan 16 years ago

Well, I just got the impression that the filmmaker was sympathizing with her. (and I wasn't)

If not, why spend so much time on it?

___ __ _
My blog about Russian animation: http://niffiwan.livejournal.com/

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[–] drummeln 16 years ago

If you compare her with the other people in the movie you will find her sequences much more suitable.

She - young, fragile and hoplesslyin love with the image of a person.
The man with flowers to Mia - old, fragile but tries to hide it inside, even when he is silently crying when the postman tells him to move so he can reach the mailbox behind him.
Mia - deeply depressed and lost in her own dark thought, but manages to snap out of her "everyone hates me"-act to tell her boyfriend that she will tag along with him in just a few minutes.
The musician that "are making love" with his wife but is so obsessed with his savings that is draining away, that he is not able to live here and now, but dwells on what he has done and what will happen in the future because of his bad investments that the bank said will be so great.

See her as some kind of mirror image (with her own faults) for the other more or less hardened or crushed people portraited.

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[–] drummeln 16 years ago

"...left with the feeling that the film really didn't have anything to say."

That is interesting, because I have now seen this movie three times, just because it is so studded with symbolism and not so very hidden underlaying messages.

The destination of the tram in the mist, the man seeking shelter from the rainstorm - and the people in the busstops lack of reaction, the walking band that leaves the audiece behind, and no one wants to be the first that breaks the crowd and leave (or follow the band), The communication (and lack of communication) between people, the psychiatrist that has lost faith in humanity and believs that all his clients are evil at heart and dont't deserve to be treated with anything else than drugs that keeps them less evil, the girl that has fallen in love with an image of a person - and that she even in her daydreams about him let him be a nonchalant prick that rather plink on his guitar than even give her a glance when they are home after their wedding.

Every single of the 57 scenes has a whole bunch of messages of both joy, sorrow and critisism against humankind, society and the government and its laws that rules the lifes and days of the living.

The movie is like a claymore-mine of thoughts and insights, exploding into the minds of the audience.

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[–] NoWireHangers 16 years ago

Yes it's tiresome and bad, but still nowhere near as tedious as "Songs from the second floor". That movie is so bad and pretentious I wanted to poke my eyes out. At least, this one had one funny scene (the one with the barber).

Conclusion: Roy Andersson is the most overrated director of all time.

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[–] allenlud 16 years ago

what do you mean? Why didn't you like this move? your post is not useful atall

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[–] deke0001 16 years ago

Have to agree that this film was a waste of my time. so boring!

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[–] Nriks 16 years ago

Given that you spend your time freely griping on an internet message board, I'm guessing it's something you'll easily get over.

Even so, I respect your right to admit that the film wasn't for you.

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[–] Projectedlight 16 years ago

I found this extremely monotonous. The opening scene is fantastic, but as I was enjoying it I felt at the same time a little bit irritated at the hermetic and cutesy framing of miserablist gripes. Unfortunately, this turned out to characterise the entire film.

While there were some brilliant scenes, I can count them on one hand (the aforementioned musical introduction, the train arriving in the mist as the passengers depart, the rain falling as the band plays on, the 'tablecloth' dream and subsequent execution, and the utterly beautiful moving house fantasy...maybe I'll include the final scene(s) and push a little into the second hand) they were balanced out by the forced, suffocating style of the other 40 something and the tired, rambling observations they attempt to impart.

"You, the Living" as a title says it all; I felt as though Andersson was looking down on us and sneering.

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[–] evenfiel 16 years ago

This is an incredibly boring movie. I took a nap after half an hour or so.

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[–] peterquinn 16 years ago

I think the theme of this film is quite universal. Roy Andersson depicts the essence of the human condition, in the same way that Samuel Beckett for example does in his play "Waiting for Godot". I found it a heart-warming, compassionate and very enjoyable film. One to see again.

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[–] amtasi 15 years ago

Haha, we´re only eccentric in movies. In real life we´re just depressed and disappointed. For no reason, really.

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[–] outsider-2 15 years ago

I found it really tiresome but it was really unique. I didn't laugh but some people at the back (there were about 7-8 of us watching it on a sunday evening) were laughing away.

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