You, the Living
| You, the Living | |
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Swedish cinema poster
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| Directed by | Roy Andersson |
| Produced by | Pernilla Sandström |
| Written by | Roy Andersson |
| Starring | Elisabet Helander Björn Englund Jessika Lundberg |
| Music by | Benny Andersson |
| Cinematography | Gustav Danielsson |
| Edited by | Anna Märta Waern |
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Production
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SFI (Sweden) Artificial Eye (UK) Palisades Tartan (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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95 minutes |
| Country | Sweden France Germany Denmark Norway |
| Language | Swedish |
| Budget | 44 million SEK |
You, the Living (Swedish: Du levande) is a 2007 Swedish black comedy-drama film written and directed by Roy Andersson. The film is an exploration on the "grandeur of existence," centered on the lives of a group of individuals, such as an overweight woman, a disgruntled psychiatrist, a heartbroken groupie, a carpenter, a business consultant, and a school teacher with emotional issues and her rug-selling husband. The basis for the film is an Old Norse proverb, "Man is man's delight," taken from the Poetic Edda poem Hávamál. The title comes from a stanza in Goethe's Roman Elegies, which also appears as a title card in the beginning of the film: "Therefore rejoice, you, the living, in your lovely warm bed, until Lethe's cold wave wets your fleeing foot."
The film consists of a fluent succession of fifty short sketches, most with a tragicomic undertone. The cast is mostly non-professional, and alienating techniques are employed such as presenting the characters in grim make-up and having them talk directly to camera. The financing was difficult and the shooting took three years to complete. The film won the Silver Hugo Award for Best Direction at the 2007 Chicago International Film Festival and has received critical acclaim.
It is the second film in a trilogy, preceded by Songs from the Second Floor (2000) and followed by A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014).
There is no central plot, but some of the vignettes connect loosely. All the stories show the essential humanity of the characters and address themes of life, existence and happiness.
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