It is so rare in these times to find a film so utterly bereft of cynicism, and so warmly sympathetic to people, in all their variety and flaws, that it would be churlish to do anything but celebrate. Some critics have complained that 'Together' has adopted a sneering tone towards its subject matter, a collective living in 70s Stockholm, in which more hackneyed emphasis is put on rows about washing-up and petty ideological points than the genuine spirit of good-will that made them set up a collective in the first place.
They must have been watching a different film to the one I saw - not only is the portrait of the collective affirmative, but it is made into a kind of magical space with transformative powers - it protects the weak, gives refuge to outsiders, opens the minds of the closed but essentially decent outsiders. It is a magnet, which drags towards it those in need of spiritual change, those for whom the social grind of 70s Sweden, supposedly the most liberated and liberal in the world, is too much. It manages the difficult trick of celebrating alternative communities and dropping out, while retaining the integrity of the individual and the family.
This collective is a magical space in the Shakespearean sense, a kind of Forest of Arden with its own special glow surrounded by the grey oppressiveness of normal society. It has no place for false freedoms, austere puritanism, selfish sexual promiscuity, narrow ideological nit-picking. Although it effects change on outsiders, its power comes from its ability to change within, to adapt - its power is not destroyed by the introduction of TV or meat, it is strengthened because their introduction respects the freedom of others.
Again like Shakespeare, it is not just a magical space, but a testing ground, a spiritual test for those of essentially good faith. This is where I got a little queasy and could sympathise with the critics. With any test, some people must pass, some must fail; to allow someone to enter, someone must be thrown out. It's a fair enough satiric point that en essentially decent man is turned by a soulless society into a spiritually empty, drunken wife-beater. And it's completely lovable that Moodysson should take this potential monster and make his spiritual progress the heart of the movie.
But to make this possible, somebody must be expelled. And this is Lena, whose nymphomania is demonised as destructive, even paedophiliac. The scene where she is thrown out is dangerously close to Lester Burnam's throwing a plate in 'American Beauty' - where a weak man finally puts a strong, overbearing woman in her place. We are meant to cheer; I found it uncomfortable. It seems Moodysson's big, inclusive heart wasn't big or inclusive enough.
I found 'Together' very watchable and likeable, but something of a disappointment after 'Show me love'. Maybe the jokes weren't funny enough. Maybe the multi-character format is more suited to ironic distance (e.g. Altman) than warmth, although Edward Yang pulled it off. Maybe the characters, through amiable, aren't distinctive enough - with the exception of introverted Lisa Simpson prototype Eva, with whom I worryingly identified, it was hard to care about the characters.
The use of Abba to add a built-in melancholy for the overall optimism was inspired - I loved the fact that the 70s recreation was less in the period detail than in the zoom-heavy, dark-colour style - even the genitalia was filmed in 70s porn murkiness.
They must have been watching a different film to the one I saw - not only is the portrait of the collective affirmative, but it is made into a kind of magical space with transformative powers - it protects the weak, gives refuge to outsiders, opens the minds of the closed but essentially decent outsiders. It is a magnet, which drags towards it those in need of spiritual change, those for whom the social grind of 70s Sweden, supposedly the most liberated and liberal in the world, is too much. It manages the difficult trick of celebrating alternative communities and dropping out, while retaining the integrity of the individual and the family.
This collective is a magical space in the Shakespearean sense, a kind of Forest of Arden with its own special glow surrounded by the grey oppressiveness of normal society. It has no place for false freedoms, austere puritanism, selfish sexual promiscuity, narrow ideological nit-picking. Although it effects change on outsiders, its power comes from its ability to change within, to adapt - its power is not destroyed by the introduction of TV or meat, it is strengthened because their introduction respects the freedom of others.
Again like Shakespeare, it is not just a magical space, but a testing ground, a spiritual test for those of essentially good faith. This is where I got a little queasy and could sympathise with the critics. With any test, some people must pass, some must fail; to allow someone to enter, someone must be thrown out. It's a fair enough satiric point that en essentially decent man is turned by a soulless society into a spiritually empty, drunken wife-beater. And it's completely lovable that Moodysson should take this potential monster and make his spiritual progress the heart of the movie.
But to make this possible, somebody must be expelled. And this is Lena, whose nymphomania is demonised as destructive, even paedophiliac. The scene where she is thrown out is dangerously close to Lester Burnam's throwing a plate in 'American Beauty' - where a weak man finally puts a strong, overbearing woman in her place. We are meant to cheer; I found it uncomfortable. It seems Moodysson's big, inclusive heart wasn't big or inclusive enough.
I found 'Together' very watchable and likeable, but something of a disappointment after 'Show me love'. Maybe the jokes weren't funny enough. Maybe the multi-character format is more suited to ironic distance (e.g. Altman) than warmth, although Edward Yang pulled it off. Maybe the characters, through amiable, aren't distinctive enough - with the exception of introverted Lisa Simpson prototype Eva, with whom I worryingly identified, it was hard to care about the characters.
The use of Abba to add a built-in melancholy for the overall optimism was inspired - I loved the fact that the 70s recreation was less in the period detail than in the zoom-heavy, dark-colour style - even the genitalia was filmed in 70s porn murkiness.