TOGETHER (Tillsammans)
Reviewed by Harvey Karten IFC Films Director: Lukas Moodysson Writer: Lukas Moodysson Cast: Lisa Lindgren, Michael Nyqvist, Gustav Hammarsten, Anja Lundkvist, Jessica Liedberg, Ola Norell, Shanti Roney, Sam Kessel, Emma Samuelsson
If only "Together" came out on the big screen in 1975, during the year that is actually represented by Lukas Moodysson's often hilarious comedy about life in a Stockholm commune! Better still, wouldn't it have been grand if the movie existed in, oh, about 1948. Invite Mao and Fidel, Nikita and Leonid, even the incorruptible Pol Pot to the screening instead of a group of critics who are hardly about to change the world. Then, maybe--not likely but maybe--they'd see the silliness that Communism represents. We wouldn't have had to go through a Cold War after 1945, there would have been no Berlin Wall to knock down, no Cambodians would be driven out of the cities by Kampuchean nut-cases. We'd even get to see whether these Reds were as humorless as Reds are made up to be, because if they couldn't get a laugh out of "Together," they're probably hopeless.
OK, granted that the type of Communism that these politicians preached was not the pure kind envisioned by the inhabitants of Tillsammans. Their lives were more like those of utopian communities like Oneida in upstate New York or, on a larger scale, similar to the Israeli kibbutzim--the only example of real Communism in the world today. Through Moodysson's tale, we get quite a bit of insight into why these perfect communities have all failed, why only two percent of Israelis choose to live in communal conditions, why Communism has not brought prosperity to a single state in which it ever existed.
But enough serious philosophisizing because there's nothing deadly serious about this comedy of proletarian manners. Moodysson introduces an array of characters from his country who, during the time that the hippie movement was on its last legs in the U.S. are still true believers in equality and, yes, even the type of free love practiced by the Woodstock generation in the U.S. They're more interested in discussing politics and philosophy than in sex, it seems (except for one horny female), spending their time making up lists of chores to be done and dividing the responsibilities equally--until, that is, one woman challenges the concept of washing the dishes because she considers such cleanliness and neatness "bourgeois." The work detail is just one of the points of disagreement that would eventually cause the commune to crack at the seams. The principal catalyst is the introduction of two bourgeois kids into the home, one being the 14-year-old daughter of Elisabeth (Lisa Lindgren), a newcomer to the collective who has fled from an abusive husband to be with her communard brother; the other, the son of the folks across the way who tut-tut about their neighbors' way of life but look kind of envious as they train their binoculars on the people whom they assume are conducting round-the-clock orgies.
"Together," however, is not a pro-capitalist movie any more than it is in favor of the strict kind of communal living that these people are striving to maintain. While there is not a single really obnoxious person in the company (at least when you get to know all of them and dismiss such things as wife-slapping), they seem to be clueless about things that other people take for granted-- people who do not live in their heads and do not even know the meaning of the term "ideology." TV. Vegetarianism. Equal sexual access to men and women. These are not the issues that face the rest of us--the bourgeois people who are damn proud of their conventional, middle-class lives, but they are the things that erode the well-being of the experimental community. No sooner do the two 14-year-olds--who have a crush on each other once they discover that their eyeglasses are interchangeable--introduce a small, black-and-white TV and a handful of hot dogs into the community, things begin to change. We'd say that they move politically to the center without embracing the bold new world envisioned by George W. Bush.
"Tillsammans" shows those of us who witnessed the Woodstock generation that the hippie movement was in no way restricted to the U.S. and that the seventies were nothing more than a phase that seems to have lasted just a bit longer than hula hoops and D.A. haircuts. These endearing young people look goofy to us, but at least they had more on their minds than piercing their tongues and abusing the word "like." A fun picture all the way. Skol!
Not Rated. Running time: 102 minutes. (C) 2001 by Harvey Karten, film_critic@compuserve.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 28931 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 236866 X-RT-TitleID: 10000567 X-RT-SourceID: 570 X-RT-AuthorID: 1123
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews