Du levande (2007)

Director:

Roy Andersson

Writer:

Roy Andersson (writer)

Release Date:

21 September 2007 (Sweden)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Music

Plot:

You, the Living is a film about humankind, its greatness and its baseness, joy and sorrow, its self-confidence and anxiety, its desire to love and be loved. |

Plot Keywords:

Bathtub | Train | Loneliness | Absurdism | Song

Awards:

10 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

Jessika Lundberg	...	Anna
Elisabeth Helander	...	Mia (as Elisabet Helander)
Björn Englund	...	Tubaplayer
Leif Larsson	...	Carpenter
Olle Olson	...	Consultant (as Ollie Olson)
Birgitta Persson	...	Tubaspelarens fru
Kemal Sener	...	The barber
Håkan Angser	...	The psychiatrist
Rolf Engström	...	Trumslagaren
Gunnar Ivarsson	...	The buisnessman
Eric Bäckman	...	Micke Larsson
Patrik Anders Edgren	...	Professor (as Patrik Edgren)
Lennart Eriksson	...	Man on the balcony
Pär Fredriksson	...	The carpet dealer
Jessica Nilsson	...	The teacher
Jörgen Nohall	...	Uffe (as Jugge Nohall)
Waldemar Nowak	...	The pick-pocket
Jan Wikbladh	...	The fan (as Jan Wikblad)
Bengt C.W. Carlsson	...	CEO (as Bengt C W Carlsson)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Fred Anderson	...	Guest at banquet

Directed by
Roy Andersson

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Roy Andersson		writer

Produced by
Philippe Bober	....	co-producer
Håkon Øverås	....	co-producer
Pernilla Sandström	....	producer
Tom Winther	....	co-executive producer

Original Music by
Benny Andersson

Cinematography by
Gustav Danielsson

Film Editing by
Anna Märta Waern

Production Design by
Magnus Renfors
Elin Segerstedt

Art Department
Magne Pettersen	....	carpenter

Sound Department
Jan Alvemark	....	sound
Robert Hefter	....	sound recordist
Robert Sörling	....	sound

Special Effects by
Christian Niklasson	....	rain

Camera and Electrical Department
Fredrik Borg	....	first assistant camera
Christian Haag	....	first assistant camera

Casting Department
Magne Pettersen	....	casting assistant

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Sofia Frykstam	....	costumer

Music Department
Johan Ahlin	....	music arranger
Robert Hefter	....	music editor
Robert Hefter	....	music supervisor

Other crew
Lena Hansson	....	film consultant: Swedish Film Institute (as Lena Hansson-Varhegyi)

Production Companies

• 4 1/2 Film (co-production)
• Canal+
• Det Danske Filminstitut
• Eurimages Council of Europe
• Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen
• Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond
• Norsk Filmfond
• Posthus Teatret
• Roy Andersson Filmproduktion AB
• Société Parisienne de Production
• Spillefilmkompaniet 4 1/2 (co-production)
• Studio 24
• StyleJam
• Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI)
• Sveriges Television (SVT)
• Thermidor Filmproduktion
• WDR/Arte
• arte France Cinéma

Distributors

• Filmes da Mostra (2009) (Brazil) (theatrical)
• Filmmuseum Distributie (2008) (Netherlands) (theatrical)
• Look Now! (2007-2008) (Switzerland) (theatrical)
• Neue Visionen Filmverleih (2008) (Germany) (theatrical)
• Sponge (2008) (South Korea) (theatrical)
• Zeta Films (2008) (Argentina) (theatrical)
• Gativideo (2008) (Argentina) (DVD)
• Palisades Tartan (2009) (USA) (all media) (subtitled)
• Video Film Express (2008) (Netherlands) (DVD)
• good movies! (2008) (Germany) (DVD)

Also Known As:

You, the Living (France) (festival title) (International: English title) (UK) (USA)
Das jüngste Gewitter (Germany)
Du levende (Denmark)
Nous, les vivants (France)

Runtime:

Argentina:95 min | Canada:95 min (Toronto International Film Festival) | USA:95 min

Country:

Sweden | Germany | France | Denmark | Norway | Japan

Language:

Swedish

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Certification:

Sweden:Btl | Finland:K-11 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Netherlands:12 | Australia:M | Japan:R-15 | Germany:6 | Singapore:R21 | Argentina:13 | South Korea:18 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden

Company:

4 1/2 Film

Trivia:

This consists of 50 short sketches, each filmed in one take.

Another cautionary tale in Andersson's unmistakable style

"With all the misery in the world, how can we not get drunk?" – Mia

A lovely aerial view of a major city turns ominous with the approach of a fleet of airplane bombers; an irate hairdresser reacting to a perceived racial slur cuts a road through a businessman's bushy hair; a man dreams of being dragged to an electric chair after a failed magic trick and a teacher breaks down in front of her grade school class because her husband called her a hag. These and about fifty other vignettes that run the gamut from the outright depressing to the wildly humorous to the joyously uplifting populate Roy Andersson's You, the Living, his first feature since his critically acclaimed if commercially unsuccessful Songs From the Second Floor.

You, the Living is filled with the same kind of imaginative set-pieces as Songs, replete with black humor, surreal situations, and strange looking characters. Though a bit overlong and less focused than his earlier work, what remains constant is Andersson's unmistakable style with its stationary camera, sterile-looking backgrounds, and precise attention to detail. If there is a theme that ties the sketches together, it is that our time on Earth is limited and "tomorrow's another day', so let's treat each other with kindness. Along the way, we are entertained by tuba and drum music from the Louisiana Brass Band, dinner guests at a banquet hall standing on their chairs singing a rousing song, and a house that turns into a moving train.

The emotions range from the gloom of a daughter attempting to communicate with an Alzheimer's patient to a young woman's ecstatic dream about marrying a handsome guitar-player named Micke to the cheers of a crowd of onlookers. While there is no continuous narrative thread, the theme of greed and desperation appears in several sketches. The first of these threads features two corpulent individuals and their tiny dog sitting on a park bench, the woman bewailing the fact that no one understands or loves her, yet she blithely ignores the man's comforting and reassuring words.

There is also a hefty admixture of irony. During what seems to be an executive luncheon, one man tells another on the phone that workers don't appreciate quality and how nice it is to appreciate money and the things that it can buy such as fine wine. When he is not looking, however, a man at an adjacent table calmly lifts his wallet from his jacket on the back of his chair. Though Andersson's cynicism is at times not very well hidden, You the Living has an underlying humanism that shows compassion for the human condition. It is a cautionary tale that looks at the mess we humans have gotten ourselves into but suggests there is still time to turn it around, if we heed the warning of the poet Goethe that opens the film, "Be pleased then, you the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe's ice-cold wave will lick your escaping foot."