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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 date)
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Reviews
Tomatometer Critic Review Category
tomato
4/5

Andrea Chase

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Oct., 04 2009 09:22 AM

Killer Movie Reviews

tomato
3.5/5

Kevin Thomas

You, the Living suggests that we would do well to discover the joy we find in each other that so often goes along with the pain.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Sep., 18 2009 02:52 PM

Los Angeles Times

tomato
3/4

John Hartl

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: | comment Comment | Sep., 10 2009 03:37 PM

Seattle Times

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J. R. Jones

“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: | comment Comment | Aug., 20 2009 01:27 PM

Chicago Reader

tomato
4/4

Roger Ebert

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: | comment Comment | Aug., 20 2009 09:29 AM

Chicago Sun-Times

tomato

Marc Mohan

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 14 2009 01:21 PM

Oregonian

tomato
7.5/10

Avi Offer

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: | comment Comment | Jul., 30 2009 07:56 PM

NYC Movie Guru

tomato
B-

Scott Tobias

You, The Living, if only by virtue of a more intimate scale than Songs, benefits from a lightness of touch and even a thin sliver of optimism in some sequences.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 30 2009 02:08 PM

AV Club

tomato

Nick Pinkerton

The actors' skin is zombie-palled with plastery powder, like a fallout of some unknown catastrophe -- and the film is aptly bookended by apocalypse, a dream-premonition that's called back as a punchline.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 30 2009 10:29 AM

Village Voice

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3/5

Keith Uhlich

No one views the world like Roy Andersson does. That fact alone is enough to recommend the Swedish director’s latest collection of interconnected, often single-take vignettes.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 30 2009 10:06 AM

Time Out New York

tomato
3.5/4

V.A. Musetto

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: | comment Comment | Jul., 29 2009 04:06 PM

New York Post

tomato
4/5

A.O. Scott

Roy Andersson’s film is slow, rigorously morose and often painful in its blunt reckoning of disappointment and failure. It is also extremely funny.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 29 2009 01:47 PM

New York Times

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Armond White

More laughs -- belly-deep, thought-provoking ones -- are to be had in the first 10 minutes of Roy Andersson’s You, the Living than in all of Judd Apatow’s Funny People.

Full Review Source: | comment 4 Comments | Jul., 29 2009 10:52 AM

New York Press

tomato
3.5/5

Kent Turner

Andersson's tableaus of the everyday are full of feeling, especially from the women (probably after a drink or two).

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 28 2009 09:18 PM

Film-Forward.com

tomato
3.5/5

Chris Cabin

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 28 2009 10:58 AM

Filmcritic.com

tomato
3.5/4

Nick Schager

Dreams figure prominently in You, the Living, which posits reveries as articulations of--or refuges from--deep-seated fears.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Jul., 26 2009 02:19 PM

Slant Magazine

tomato

Andrew L. Urban

Some of the sketches don't really work or don't blend with their cousins, but the snapshot approach means they are short.

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Aug., 03 2008 01:04 AM

Urban Cinefile

tomato
A

Amy Nicholson

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: | comment Comment | Jun., 27 2008 09:53 AM

Boxoffice Magazine

tomato
3.5/4

Jeffrey M. Anderson

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: | comment Comment | Jun., 07 2008 08:37 PM

Combustible Celluloid

tomato
3/4

Colin Covert

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

Full Review Source: | comment Comment | Apr., 17 2008 02:17 PM

Minneapolis Star Tribune

 
 
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