Lukas
Moodysson's "Together" is witty and charming by Jürgen Fauth
Soccer
in the snow is a favorite past-time of the Northern European Hippie.
Ikea. ABBA. Pippi Longstocking. Tuborg. Lego. Welcome
to Sweden.
Now meet
Goran, the cheerful peacenik, his controlling girlfriend Lena, and the
members of their commune: cynical Lasse, his newly converted lesbian ex-wife
Anna, their war-games deprived son Tet, Lasse's wanna-be lover Klas with
the helmet haircut, the bitter class-warrior Erik and the earnest eco-freaks
Signe and Sigvard, who are joined by Goran's sister Elisabeth, the suburban
housewife on the run from her drunkard husband Rolf with her sullen children
Stefan and Eva, who befriend the lonely neighborhood boy Fredrik.
"Together,"
the new film by Swedish writer/director Lukas Moodysson, puts character
before place. Much has been made of the fact that this colorful memory
of the idealistic 70s comes from Sweden, as if there weren't communes
everywhere and other countries didn't have a past. Moodysson really means
his title and spends time with his large and lovely cast of characters,
accomplishing the amazing feat of giving everybody their due.
"Together"
interweaves three or four major plots with several subplots, and somehow
they all revolve around loneliness and its opposite - for a while, the
film gets mighty sad. The children Stefan and Eva especially suffer from
their parents' split-up and wearily conclude that "all adults are
idiots."
I was pleased
with the way Moodysson avoids easy clichés: the guffaws at the
hippies' expense are balanced by potshots at their straight-arrow neighbors.
"Together" may easily feature the most uplifting ending of any
film not starring Robin Williams - and if the word "uplifting"
makes you cringe, then you should know that the tremendous finale of "Together"
is altogether earned. If you're looking for a film to restore some faith
in human goodness, this is it.
Directed
by Lukas Moodysson. In Swedish, with English subtitles. Rated R, 106
minutes.
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