Together

Posted as part of Operation 101010
Category: impulse buys / In category: 8 of 10 / Overall: 55 of 100

Why buy?

Part of the Lukas Moodysson box set.

The expectation

An acutely observed, po-faced bit of satire.

The actuality

I had a productive and engaging day at work today. I mention this for a reason.

Usually, my working day is eight hours of ennui which I make it through purely by dwelling on whatever movie I watched last and composing a review in my head, structuring it, shaping it, figuring out a good opening sentence or paragraph, a hook that leads into the rest of the article; then fleshing it out, developing it, challenging myself to come up with trenchant observations or pithy remarks. Eight hours of marking time and wanting to be anywhere other than at my desk, at the end of which I amble home, fix something to eat, spend some quality time with Mrs Agitation, then flip on the computer and transcribe the review from my head into Word.

Today, I didn’t have that luxury. Today, I actually enjoyed my job, took satisfaction in my endeavours and saw a positive result. As a result of which, I’m staring at a screen that is blank except for 190 non-film-related words and cursing my employers for putting me in a position whereby I haven’t had the opportunity to marshal my thoughts on ‘Together’.

So, fumbling my way into this write-up, I guess there’s two immediate, superficial approaches. One is to say: ‘Together’ is about a maltreated housewife, Elisabeth (Lisa Lindgren), who walks out on her temperamental husband Rolf (Michael Nyqvist) and seeks shelter at Tilsammens (Swedish for “together”), the hippie commune run by her milquetoast brother Göran (Gustaf Hammarsten). Suburbanite Elisabeth and her young children experience a culture clash with their socialist, vegan, pro-feminist, politically active hosts, while the remorseful Rolf tries to mend his ways and rebuild bridges with his family. Hilarity ensues.

The other is to say: Göran is trying maintain an open relationship with the dipsomaniac and emotionally infantile Lena (Anja Lundkvist) while keeping the peace in a settlement full of well-meaning but politically very different drop-outs, from politically aware but terminally naïve Erik (Olle Sarri) – whom Lena moons after – to the openly gay and painfully angst-ridden Klas (Shanti Roney) by way of recently estranged couple Lasse (Ola Rapace) and Anna (Jessica Liedberg). Lasse baits Erik while fending off (or maybe not) Klas’s advances, while bridling at the fact that Anna has embraced lesbianism for what he sees as political rather than sexual, romantic or emotional reasons. Into this melting pot of counter-culture comes suburban housewife Elisabeth. The results are funny, poignant and life-changing.

Both of these descriptions, never mind that they tick the required boxes, are essentially wrong. The first makes ‘Together’ sound like a smug but ultimately schmaltzy culture-clash comedy. The second comes on like a Robert Altman ensemble piece shot through with a bleatingly liberal indie sensibility. The first sounds plotless, the second overplotted. Neither come anywhere close to capturing the charm, wit, intelligence, attention to detail and investment in character and character development that imbues virtually every frame of ‘Together’.

In lesser hands, the characters could have been ciphers. Clichés. Stereotypes. Moodysson, even when painting in the boldest strokes, draws impeccably nuanced performances from his cast, not one performer putting a foot wrong. His script is just as subtle. A Hollywood comedy utilising this scenario would pound the audience into brain-damage with facile life lessons and blatantly manipulative moralising. Moodysson, on the other hand, simply lets his characters interact and observes how they rub off on each other. He never makes fun of their foibles (in fact, their interaction is niftily juxtaposed with the emotional sterility of the disapproving curtain-twitchers who live opposite the commune), but simply presents them as human beings. Flawed, sometimes foolish, but never less than human.

Nor does he ever lose sight of the potential of wry humour as a comment on the human condition. Consider the scene where one of the aforesaid curtain-twitchers spies through binoculars on Anna and Elisabeth swaying drunkenly in what he perceives as a seductive dance; brushing off his wife’s overtures to join him on the sofa, he claims that he’s going to the basement to do some woodwork; downstairs, he takes a wank mag from underneath his bench, seizes a hammer and bashes away at a non-existent project as he fumbles at his belt. Moodysson cuts to his wife, knitting metronomically, her eyes rolling as the hammering becomes more and more frenzied. Aesthetically, this is Robin Askwith territory; yet Moodysson’s deadpan approach to the material renders it comedy gold.

From this throwaway scene, Moodysson develops a beautifully understated subplot regarding the tentative romance that develops between Elisabeth’s socially inept daughter and the curtain-twitchers’ overweight and nerdy son. As he did in ‘Fucking Åmål’, Moodysson is sensitive, responsible and empathetic in his depiction of children sidelined by their peers and rejected as uncool. He refuses to condescend or poke fun.

The non-judgementalism extends to the adults in the cast. Many a director would pitch Rolf as the villain of the piece, particularly when he comes into the sphere of influence of one Birger Andersson (Sten Ljunggren), the fuck-up anti-hero of ‘Talk’. At this point, having seen ‘Talk’, I went all queasy, imagining that Moodysson had set the narrative on course towards a savage and unpalatable ending.

Again, my bad on making snap judgements. Against all the odds – ie. the memories of anyone who’s ever seen ‘Talk’ and winced at the gallows-humour ending – Moodysson redeems Birger as a man who just wants to do the right thing. His intensity and insistence initially comes across as creepy, but there’s a moment late in the film where, to his own discomfort and knowing that he’ll be overlooked and left alone, he deliberately and gallantly removes himself from the equation the better to allow Rolf, a man he barely knows, a shot at reconciliation. Like so much of ‘Together’, it’s an unforced, candidly observed moment which proves that Moodysson’s characters are capable of demonstrating their best even if the vagaries of life have compromised and wrongfooted them.

‘Together’ is sublime. It is the loveliest and most unexpected cinematic discovery I’ve made this year.

Lukas Moodysson week

I’ll be rounding out the “impulse buys” category of Operation 101010 this week with four Lukas Moodysson films. He’s a director I know nothing about apart from the almost unanimous acclaim garnered by his first three films – ‘Show Me Love’ (a.k.a. ‘Fucking Åmål’), ‘Together’ and ‘Lilja 4-Ever’ – and the scabrous controversy which his fourth – ‘A Hole in My Heart’ – engendered.

These four titles are collected in the Metrodome four-DVD box set which I picked up for a song (£10 – i.e. £2.50 a movie) a few months ago but which has sat on the shelf gathering dust. I had it at the back of my mind that ‘Show Me Love’ and ‘Together’ would be desperately worthy, ‘Lilja 4-Ever’ utterly depressing and ‘A Hole in My Heart’ an endurance course of a movie.

I squared up to the box set over the weekend. I’ve watched ‘Show Me Love’ and ‘Together’ (thoughts on those tomorrow and Wednesday) and I’ll be sticking ‘Lilja 4-Ever’ on as soon as I’ve posted this.

But I thought I’d kick start Moodysson week (it’s not a retrospective per se since I don’t have copies of ‘Container’ and ‘Mammoth’ available) with a few words on ‘Talk’, an early short film included as one of the extras.

‘Talk’ – the indigenous title ‘Bara Prata Lite’ translates as something closer to ‘Just Talk for a While’ – starts with Birger Andersson (Sten Ljunggren), a shambolic looking man in late middle age, trying to strike up a conversation with a younger woman on a bus. He tells her that he’s on his way to work and that he works at the Volvo plant. Her disinterest is palpable. She ignores him. At the Volvo plant, Birger wanders round – seemingly aimlessly. Anorak on, plastic bag clutched in his hand, he cuts a sorry figure. He passes on some advice to an engineer working on a precision part – the man tells him to clear off. He wanders into an empty canteen looking for a cup of tea – the cashier eyes him warily and calls for the chef. The chef tries to reason with him: he doesn’t work there anymore; go home; take up a hobby. Birger seems about to go off on one, but leaves.

So far, so good. A decent character study underpinned by an unshowy but affecting performance from Ljunggren. Similarly unfussy direction from Moodysson. A highly observational piece documenting one of life’s overlooked denizens. Not necessarily a loser; more a victim of his own mundanity.

If Moodysson had left it there, or continued second half of his 14-minute short in like manner, I’d have no hesitation in hailing ‘Talk’ as a little gem. Unfortunately, Moodysson decides to give the piece a meaning rather than let Birger’s sad and forgotten life speak for itself.

Mahapadu (Cecilia Frode), a hippie in thrall to eastern religions, turns up on Birger’s doorstep – a flower child version of a Jehovah’s witness – and much to her stupefaction is invited in. Birger, natch, just wants to talk. So does she. But Birger wants to talk about his life, about the small failings and day-to-day drabness that defines it. Mahapadu wants to talk about God and enlightenment. Birger, dismissing her beliefs, drones on and on, his logorrhea building to a rant. Mahapadu, unnerved, tries to leave …

It’s obvious where this is going, and the theme of talking as not necessarily analogous to communication isn’t so much introduced into, or debated by, the film as hammered home with a fucking big mallet. A gallows-humour coda ends things on a slightly weird note, the very grounded and character-based scenes of just ten minutes earlier having somehow morphed into a bad comedy sketch.

Still, ‘Talk’ shows great skill from its fledgling director, not least in his ability with actors. Ljunggren’s characterisation of Birger is finely nuanced and utterly convincing, so much so that even the out-of-place ending doesn’t detract from the completeness of the performance. Also, the success of ‘Talk’ gave Moodysson the opportunity to make ‘Show Me Love’. It served its purpose.