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Movies / On DVD / You, the Living
You, the Living

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You, the Living (2009)

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Reviews Counted:34

Fresh:34

Rotten:0

Average Rating:7.7/10

Consensus: Composed of humorous sketches of human behavior, Roy Andersson's You, the Living is an eccentric but highly entertaining and unforgettable work.

Rated: Not Rated

Runtime: 90 mins

Genre: Foreign Films

Theatrical Release:Jul 29, 2009 Limited

Synopsis: Film Forum is proud to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of Roy Andersson’s You, The Living, an absurdist take on the everyday foibles of human nature. Andersson couples his iconic visual style... Film Forum is proud to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of Roy Andersson’s You, The Living, an absurdist take on the everyday foibles of human nature. Andersson couples his iconic visual style (stationary shots, a monochromatic palette of grays and greens) with a meticulous eye for composition (compared by some critics to the work of German painters Otto Dix and Max Beckmann) to yield a brilliant succession of dreamlike tableaux: a bride and her electric guitar-playing groom sail along in a house moving like a train; a distraught man complains of his financial woes while his wife tries to make love to him; a drunken woman shouts “No one understands me” to a bar full of silent patrons; a man waiting in line to buy a train ticket changes queues repeatedly, to no advantage. Running the gamut from quotidian struggles to big philosophical questions of love, sympathy and purpose in an uncaring world, Andersson brings a blast of distinctive Nordic humor to our universal woes.

Although he has directed just four features in four decades, Roy Andersson is one of Sweden’s most acclaimed filmmakers. His previous feature, Songs from the Second Floor, won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 and had its U.S. theatrical premiere at Film Forum in 2001. In the mid-1970s, Andersson began a second career as a maker of humorous, exquisitely photographed, world-renowned television commercials for such clients as Citroën, Volvo and Lotto (which Ingmar Bergman once called “the best commercials in the world”). In 1981, Andersson founded Studio 24, a production studio in Stockholm, in order to produce his own movies in total freedom. The Museum of Modern Art will hold a full retrospective of Andersson’s work September 10 – 18, including the premiere of a documentary on the making of You, The Living. --© Film Forum [More]

Director: Roy Andersson

Director: Roy Andersson
Producer: Johan Carlsson
Studio: Tartan Films

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Release:

Feb 10, 2009

[DVD Details]
 
 

DVD Features:

  • Full Frame - 1.33

Audio:

  • Dolby Digital 2.0
 
 
 
 

Reviews for You, the Living

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1 - 20 (sorted by critic A-Z)
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A cold soup mix of Buster Keaton, David Lynch, Jerry Lewis and Terry Gilliam, hawking deadpan jokes as well as chilly, disheartening mean streaks in his blocky, deep-space single takes.

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment Comment
06/07/08
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

this litany of human disconnection, misery, frustration and despair... would be an almost unbearably bleak mosaic of our living deaths, were it not for Andersson's profound appreciation of Chaplin's observation that comedy is tragedy seen in long-shot.

Full Review Source: Channel 4 Film | comment Comment
03/21/08
Anton Bitel
Anton Bitel
Channel 4 Film

Andersson is radically different from anyone else, with a technical, compositional rigour that puts other movie-makers and visual artists to shame.

Full Review Source: Guardian [UK] | comment Comment
03/28/08
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw
Guardian [UK]

It's always the movies that seem the least like movies that are the truest to life.

Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy | comment Comment
10/13/07
Tim Brayton
Tim Brayton
Antagony & Ecstasy

Andersson is, at heart, an expert absurdist; to him, there is meaning in the meaningless and salvation in the ridiculous

Full Review Source: Filmcritic.com | comment Comment
07/28/09
Chris Cabin
Chris Cabin
Filmcritic.com

You won’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Full Review Source: Time Out | comment Comment
03/27/08
Dave Calhoun
Dave Calhoun
Time Out

A morosely comic symphony on the meaning (or is that meaninglessness?) of life, Roy Andersson's You, the Living can be seen as a gentler companion piece to his 2000 Cannes prize-winner, Songs From the Second Floor.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
05/24/07
Justin Chang
Justin Chang
Variety
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Andersson’s movie reveals poetic ironies, surreal slapstick and melancholy truths, often all wrapped up together. The gloom gets a bit thick over the 92 minutes, but there are sequences here you will never forget.

Full Review Source: Total Film | comment 1 Comment
03/28/08
Tom Charity
Tom Charity
Total Film

a surreal still life that provokes the audience to find the absurdity rather than the tragedy

Full Review Source: Killer Movie Reviews | comment Comment
10/04/09
Andrea Chase
Andrea Chase
Killer Movie Reviews

Jacques Tati’s puckish humor meets Ingmar Bergman’s angst in this erratic, eccentric gem.

Full Review Source: Minneapolis Star Tribune | comment Comment
04/17/08
Colin Covert
Colin Covert
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The meaning of life just might be hidden here… only don’t expect to find it on a first viewing.

Full Review Source: Sky Movies | comment Comment
03/28/08
Rob Daniel
Rob Daniel
Sky Movies

The result is in some ways a comedy with a twist of the knife, and in other ways, a film like nobody else has ever made -- except for its director, Roy Andersson of Sweden. Andersson’s You, the Living is hypnotic.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
08/20/09
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Essentially indescribable, You, the Living offers little help to anyone trying to get a handle on it in terms of a traditional narrative. But it can be quite funny if you're susceptible to Andersson's curious way of capturing the human comedy.

Full Review Source: Seattle Times | comment Comment
09/10/09
John Hartl
John Hartl
Seattle Times

To complain that Andersson's skits are difficult or boring to sit through because they seem too close to the pain of daily life is to pay them some kind of a compliment.

Full Review Source: MovieMartyr.com | comment 1 Comment
01/10/08
Jeremy Heilman
Jeremy Heilman
MovieMartyr.com

“Keaton-esque” hardly begins to describe this brutally deadpan comedy by Swedish director Roy Andersson (Songs From the Second Floor), who seems to have translated the entire range of human misery into a loosely connected series of slapstick gags.

Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | comment Comment
08/20/09
J. R. Jones
J. R. Jones
Chicago Reader
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

The lack of narrative cohesion eventually starts to wear, but the episodes and images are memorable.

Full Review Source: Oregonian | comment Comment
08/14/09
Marc Mohan
Marc Mohan
Oregonian

Presenting the funniest movie of 2009 (so far). It's You, the Living, a collec tion of 50 absurdist sketches written and directed by Roy Andersson, a talented gentleman from Sweden.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
07/29/09
V.A. Musetto
V.A. Musetto
New York Post
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Made of 50 short, stiff scenes of human behavior, shot as dispassionately as wildlife, Andersson is either stretching the definition of cinema or returning it to its roots

Full Review Source: Boxoffice Magazine | comment Comment
06/27/08
Amy Nicholson
Amy Nicholson
Boxoffice Magazine

Surreal and absurd, yet oddly captivating and filled with a dry, sardonic sense of humor, stunning visuals along with provocative critiques of modern society.

Full Review Source: NYC Movie Guru | comment Comment
07/30/09
Avi Offer
Avi Offer
NYC Movie Guru

Recalling the work of Jacques Tati, this is a grim but amusing and ultimately successful effort.

Full Review Source: Empire Magazine | comment Comment
03/27/08
David Parkinson
David Parkinson
Empire Magazine
 
 
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