Swedish director Roy Andersson is 76 years old. He made his first feature film in 1969, and has since made six more films, most recently this year. Seven films in half a century. ‘Du levande‘ (‘You, the living‘) from 2007 was his fifth film, and the first one I saw, on the recommendation of a new Internet friend. If I am to judge after this film, however, Andersson is one of the most talented and original Scandinavian directors, a special personality even in the context of a film school that does not lack innovators and explorers of unique ways of cinematic expression.
‘Du levande‘ is a film whose structure is quite different from everything I’ve seen so far. The scenario lacks a clear narrative line, if we were to compare this film with a book we could say that we are not dealing with a novel but with a collection of short stories, which all take place in a similar urban space, with some shared characters, but also with many others most of them, showing up in just one of the episodes. I don’t think there is any happy character in the movie. Everybody seems to exist in a space suspended between semi-life and death, some long for something they can’t reach, others are completely resigned. The most vivid and dynamic sequences of the film are actually two dreams, one of which is a nightmare, the other one mirrors an aspiration that cannot be fulfilled in real life. One of the characters is a psychoanalyst, but he also confesses in a monologue addressed to the viewers his routine, boredom and inability to help after 27 years of profession. In the film written and directed by Roy Andersson, dream and absurd meet. The flounder of his characters has no chance. The impossibility of communication and the futility of the hopes of his heroes reminded me of the plays of two of the important playwrights of the second half of the 20th century: Eugen Ionesco and Hanoch Levin.
Most of the actors are, as I read, amateurish, but the excellent guidance of the director makes them act and move coherently and consistently with the message and atmosphere of the film. Apart from the few characters that appear in more than one of the film’s scenes, the other strong common thread is the cinematography. The sets seem to have been created especially for ‘Du levande‘ and filming took place entirely in studios. This is a return to the classic shooting style of the 1930s, but also a subtle interpretation of the ‘Dogma’ rules. The color palette is constantly dimmed, we are in a perpetual and foggy twilight, at the hour when Scandinavian pubs are closing, with the notable exception of one great thunderstorm with torrential rain. Time seems suspended, perhaps this is the world without pain and without seasons of the song with a painfully beautiful melody performed on two occasions, of which once at a funeral service. Death is always present, but it is not frightening, perhaps because the heroes of the film have already crossed the bridge? I understand that in other of Roy Andersson‘s films, the social and political issues play an important role, here they pass on the second plane, appearing explicitly once, in a prayer of a character whose face we will never see. ‘Du levande‘ is a beautiful and special film, to which the viewers continue to think long after the end of the screening. One last association that comes to my mind is that of Magritte’s paintings.