Together

When I bought my Lukas Moodysson 4 disc boxset, this being the second DVD in it, little did I realise that I had in fact seen Together many years before and many parts had lodged in my memory and so it was a huge pleasure to see it again - and actually own it now, too.

It's a lovely multi-faceted film that can be watched intently, or as I'm doing this time, just picking up the bits and characters I want to follow. Few movies successfully allow such freedom, at least in still giving us an overall picture. So totally un-Hollywood, with as much natural everything, including (refreshingly, these days) body hair - and I mean ALL body hair that it's impossible to get embarrassed by any of the open and frank attitudes to sex, the (now) ridiculous clothes and the Communist lifestyle of the 'Collective', as it prefers to be termed (not commune).

Battered housewife Elisabeth leaves her husband Rolf with her children and is promptly thrown into the very strange but comforting cushion as is the Collective, as Rolf pours all the alcohol down the drain and attempts to contact his wife. Slowly, through reunions with the children, they paint their view on their new life, which, as you can imagine, is often hilarious. Whether they get back together as a family unit is definitely not for me to say, though and the varying shades of this aspect is yet another of the film's delights.

Because everyone is so natural, nothing is surprising, yet individually, in another film and with a different director, many scenes would just be too way-out and off-beam. Similarly, we almost want to join them, as common-sense is painlessly drawn from us and we are enveloped by these rather strange but peculiarly likable people.

Moodysson extracts enormously natural and relaxed performances - you'd swear much of it is a documentary, yet the camera always expertly follows and ends up just where it should be, swiftly but gently. The children in particular, especially when playing is a wondrously warm treat; they're just like all kids everywhere, totally oblivious to the camera.

Together is an offbeat gem, it might not be for everyone but for anyone with a heart and soul and a wholesome attitude to life, it definitely will be.

Göran is making porridge. For some reason this prompts him to deliver an improvised musing on the theme of Life Is Like a Bowl of Porridge, which goes roughly as follows: "We start as individual oat flakes, each with an individual shape; then we're heated and mixed and we start to blend together with all the other oat flakes; we're no longer oat flakes, but we're part of something larger - something warm, nutritious, and, yes, beautiful." Göran says this as though he's trying to convince himself. And no wonder. The porridge the camera reveals to us looks like repellent glomp.

And up until that point - well, up until a little before that point; the film's arc is like a long walk up a very gentle hill and it's hard to pick the precise moment at which we make it to the top - the collective seemed just as much a dollop of repellent glomp as the porridge. There were too many people too close together, the windows were never open, and for long stretches we never stepped outside, never even caught a glimpse of the outside. Every single room looked and felt as though it were buried in the very centre of the house. It was like living in a fetid warren, and it made me long for something cold and impersonal.

But even as we're gasping to escape we're being won over. In the end the film really IS warm, and it's the pleasing warmth of a fireplace rather than clammy warmth of porridge. The joyousness Moodysson concludes with grew so naturally out of what preceded it that the glow it casts is retrospective. I can't recall a single moment which I don't NOW (having seen the whole thing) recall with fondness.

The LOOK of the film is, in a quiet way, astonishing, except that it's so convincing you forget to be astonished. You'd swear it was shot in the 1970s. (When I saw the trailer I thought was watching an ad for the reissue of a movie that HAD been shot in the 1970s.) This is as great a triumph of art direction as any you're likely to see.

Together is a good film. It has no plot to speak of, but hey plots are overrated anyway, especially as most of them have so many holes it's impossible to make sense; Together bypasses this by not having one. But instead what we have is a beautifully observed and a very subtle intelligent comedy. Together (initially ironic) follows the discordant inhabitants of a hippie commune in the mid-seventies. It begins with them all literally jumping for joy at the news of Franco's death: so yeah they have their beliefs, where much of the comedy is derived coming as we do from an apathetic cynical new-millennium perspective. Well I laughed: an example; one of the children is called Tet after the Tet offensive during Vietnam!!. And there's the free love, the radical politics, and the ostracisation towards them by their neighbours. All the clichés, but clichés do happen: and as with Show Me Love the writer/director Lukas Moodysson manages to somehow freshen and make them no longer clichéd at all: a very good skill he has.

Coming from the position of being a very big fan of Lukas' first and better film Show Me Love/ Fucking Åmål it's easy to see the similarities between the two. The similarities are what make Together less impressive, that and the story is less interesting: it's not dull but there are just too many characters, it's hard to connect with any one of them. I've seen Show Me Love perhaps too many times, what keeps me coming back again and again is that I really connect with and love the main characters, it's like they are versions of who I once was. Additionally, there are essentially only two of them for Lukas to focus on, whereas with Together there are at least ten. I don't think it's the age thing either as I'm closer to those in Together than Show Me Love (depressingly). There are just too many characters and he can't focus on them all, the film is essentially a snapshot of their lives over the space of a turbulent few weeks. Similar to Show Me Love, only with the same duration: Together needed to be longer. However at the close it does all come together, you begin to feel for the characters. You come to understand and witness some growth in them: they lose some of their radicalism and begin to actually like each other becoming more synergistic as the staunchly dogmatic members leave for more idealistic communes or the Baader Meinhof! I think the point is that the remaining characters may be similar to me, I may have found a connection only there is no time to show this as they only get a few moments of focus each.

There are also some annoying directorial techniques (the same ones as in Show Me Love) like the fast-zoom to close-up where sometimes a static shot would have been better, I hoped he'd learnt to use it sparingly but obviously he loves it too much to ever part. But this is a tiny point, the biggest drawback is that I can see all the characters from Show Me Love transposed onto this film; different ages, different settings but essentially the same: it's like we're watching the parents of the kids in his earlier film. It's not enough to annoy me, but it does detract, it's what makes this film only a nine rather than the definite ten that Show Me Love deserves. Finally, I hope Lukas will make a film better than Show Me Love so he'll not have it like a millstone, but first he has to find different voices for his characters. I hope everything he does will not be compared to that film, but it is a very good film indeed. However, Together, as it stands, is just too similar not to compare it with his earlier film.

After seeing Together I left the cinema smiling and, if nothing else, it managed to make me sing ABBA's SOS all the way home, and I hate ABBA, being a man and all! And I'm still deciding about seeing it again, so it is a good film and I did enjoy it, the difference being that I wanted to see Show Me Love again immediately and then over and over and over: and do. Maybe after a second viewing I'll feel something more for the characters? I'll let you know!

This film offers a slice of life, plain and simple. The writing is so subtle and the performances are so realistic that you start thinking you're watching a documentary about life in an actual commune during the seventies in Sweden. The film is incredibly funny but also tragic, moving and honest. It's one of those cinematic journeys that show you the humor and the darkness, the weight and the ridiculousness of our mundane existence; it's a film that finds excitement in the little things (that are actually the big things once you take a closer look). A true gem of a film and a wonderful, rich experience that leaves you with a smile on your face and more insight into the human condition. 9 stars out of 10.

In case you're interested in more underrated masterpieces, here's some of my favorites:

imdb.com/list/ls070242495

This one is certainly the best movie I've watched in my life. Casting is so natural, and the movie touches many aspects of life from politics to family disputes. Göran has the hardest job in the "family" and hardest job as far as acting is concerned. But he's totally successful. When you watch the movie, you feel like he's acting his own life. The "open relationship" between Göran and his girlfriend, the friendship between the two youngsters, and social/political issues give the movie a lot of spice. Moodyson's another movie, Fucking Åmål (Show Me Love) is also a masterpiece, but this one is more suitable for older people. Briefly, tremendous content and flawless casting.