eveningsout
Keeping idealism from fading in a '70s commune
IFC FILMS
Anna (Jessica Liedberg) and Elizabeth (Lisa Lindgren) discuss the sociopolitical ramifications of unshaved armpits in Together.
Together
Directed by Lukas Moodysson Drexel, Cedar-Lee theaters
Reviewed by Kaizaad Kotwal
A new film from a brilliant young Swedish writer and director is as much about togetherness as it is about the effort to achieve and maintain it.
Together (Tillsammans in Swedish) ereates a very intimate and tumultuous world set during the early 1970s when the globe was in a state of constant flux vis-a-vis Vietnam. flower power, the sexual revolution, emerging gay and lesbian rights, and a host of other social and cultural revolutions.
The film tells the story of a commune in Sweden, presumably in Stockholm, where a group of free-thinking, free-spirited, freeloving men and women are hanging on to the hopes that these collective cultural revolutions will yield a world that is a better place for women, for gays and lesbians, and for the working classes.
The commune in this film is a chaotic home, crammed with a family of would-be revolutionaries and those beginning to lose hope and patience with the promises of freedom for all. They are united by their leftist politics, which is also the leading cause of their internal strife, threatening to tear them apart.
The is led by pacifist Goran (Gustaf group Hammersten), a kind and benevolent soul trying to keep everyone at peace. But in trying to make everyone else happy he realizes that his own joy is stifled. Many problems are caused by his wildly emotional girlfriend Lena (Anja Lundqvist), who uses him to the point of breaking him.
Then there are the sexy and playful medical student Lasse (Ola Norell) and his exwife Anna (Jessica Liedberg), who left him to explore her lesbianism. They have a son from their union, Tet (Axel Zuber), an eightyear-old named after the 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam. The fact that they all still live together leads to a lot of tension as Lasse watches his wife explore her sexuality with other women in the household.
Lasse becomes the object of Klas's (Shanti Roney) attention. Klas is a gay man who pines for Lasse, cursing his inability to find a man to shower with his devotion. What eventually happens between Lasse and Klas is a sweet surprise in a movie filled with bittersweet moments of love, both fulfilled and unrequited.
This menagerie is completed by Erik (Olle Sarri), a sexy yet very irritable and frustrated Communist, Signe (Cecilia Frode), an extremely rigid and principled hippie, and Sigvard (Lars Frode), her stubborn, idealistic husband.
The film, which seeks to reconstruct a
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seminal cra of the contemporary world, asks some tough questions about the seventies and the aftermath of those cultural seismic shifts. The film doesn't glorify this time at all: sometimes it is bitter in its criticism of some of the hypocrisies and narrowmindedness of a movement that was formed in part by a reaction against the hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness of the political, social, cultural, religious and economic right.
Writer-director Moodysson is lashing out against the mistakes of the 70s, which prevented it from fulfilling its potential. The film is not an indictment of the decade. but rather a chastisement to a bygone era and its architects for missing out on the opportunity to truly make the world a better place. By the end of the film. Moodysson has also celebrated the brayery, the struggles and the successes of that time and its flower-power children. All the characters in the film grow and learn that social, political and personal progress is both inevitable and necessary. For those who aren't willing to change, the consequence is being left behind.
The ensemble cast here is absolutely brilliant. The children in this film are truly marvelous as they subtly and maturely portray the total confusion of growing up with adults who are, as one of them wisely notes, "all such idiots!"
The adult actors are also brilliant. Gustaf Hammarsten plays the suffering Goran with a quiet desperation that crescendos to his ultimate awakening where he powerfully stands up for his own feeling and his own well-being. Jessica Liedberg as the lesbian Anna embodies the joie de vivre of a woman who has found her true identity away from her husband and yet who is still vulnerable to the rejections of the women she now desires.
Ola Norell as Lasse, the impish, playful and troublemaking ex-husband of Anna is a joy to watch. He exudes a charm and sexuality that is magnetic and his performance is real from start to finish. His relationship with Klas is touching and sweet to watch as it grows from polite distance to tender intimacy.
Finally, Shanti Roney as Klas is moving as he tries to fend off his loneliness despite the fact that he can be openly gay in this environment. For him the freedom to be openly gay means little if he can't find someone to share that liberation with.
Together is a super slice-of-life film. It amuses as much as it angers, but regardless, it presents a world of people to fall in love with.
The film posits many powerful messages. most of all that loneliness is the worst curse in the whole wide world and that love between two people, no matter who they are. is the most ephemerally beautiful gift of life.✔
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