Customer Reviews

Together

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

(Not ot be confused with another great film of the same name, directed by Chinese master Chen Kaige.)

"Together" is the second film by Lukas Moodysson, who gave us very charming film "Show Me Love." (If you have not seen it, you are just missing a great thing.) Here, Moodysson tackles different theme, a small commune in 1975 in Sweden, in which their ideals are tested by the new members of the place.

The film starts when a mother Elizabeth left her home with two children, Eva and Stefan, because of the perpetual violence of the drunkard husband. Now, the plot sounds heavy, but this film never gets too serious, so we are quickly introduced to the commune named "Together" where many colorful people are living. They are Erik, young radical student whose ideas go ridiculously too far; Anna, feminist turned lesbian who likes meditating; Goran, who is too kind-hearted (or timid) to tell what he realy thinks, Lena, whose idea of Free Love is a real suspect, and others, including a boy Tet (named after the event of the war in Vietnam) who plays with Stefan, doing "mock-torturing."

Now join the distraught wife Elizabeth and Eva and Stefan. The film tells how the commune react to them (and them to the commune) in a light touch, with many episodes. The general tone of the film is that of a well-made comedy, though for American audience some of the contents are very radical (nudity included). It's a Swedish film, after all.

The most impressive part is, like the previous "Show Me Love," the kids. Eva and the boy living across the street establish a budding relation which might be called love, and their embarrassed feelings towards the unique adults are implied very delicately in the apparently small things -- like staying all the day in a small van (which looks like the one you see in "Scooby-Doo").

And what I liked most is the sly touch of the film, which suggests that the commune is not going to last forever. I do not talk about the ending, but from the beginning you find that the community of the kind -- hippies denying any kind of commercialism, like TV or soft drink -- belongs to the things of the past. Like the music of ABBA, it's definitely 70s. And that's why they look charming, looking back from now.

You may find some of the characters annoying, but the film is delightful enough to make them, if not likeable, certainly irresitible. "Together" has that kind of power, which comples you to keep watching.

It is the year 1975 when ABBA and the children TV show "Fem myror är fler än fyra elefanter" (translation: Five ants are more than four than five elephants) was immensely popular in Sweden. Elisabeth has just been beaten up by her husband and she has decided to move to to her brother Göran's with her two children. What makes the film more interesting is that Göran lives in a commune with a wide variety of characters that are rather radical on the left side of politics and openly display opinions and thoughts in regards to anything. At first is Elisabeth is bothered by their openness towards one another, but she realizes that she has no where else to go as a jobless housewife. As time passes Elisabeth becomes not only comfortable, but also begins to form her own notions, which strengthens her.

Together (Tillsammans) is a marvelous and well directed story as it is a kaleidoscope of notions put into action in an environment where love and confrontations belong in the daily routine. Despite the confrontational situations in the film, Moodysson creates a warm atmosphere where one concept overrides all other thoughts, which is that notions are pointless in the absence of company. This results in a warm comedy with serious undertones that offer much food for thought as Moodysson leaves the audience with a brilliant cinematic experience.

The year 2001 was pretty much a vast and empty one for film. "Together" was one of the few bright spots of the year. This truly wonderful film is set in Stockholm, Sweeden circa 1975 at a commune known as Together. The people who live at the commune are pretty much your "typical" hippies and socialists who believe they are living in a "utopia". Unfortunately, egos and a middle class lifestyle that they never really abandoned quietly sneak into the picture. Also coming into this mix is one of the member's sister fleeing her abusive husband. She brings along her two children who are not in the least too enthused about being here. Oh, but why reveal anymore. See this great film for yourself.
Lukas Moodysson wrote and directed this film and he captures this period better than I've ever seen it caught on film before. He even captures the look and feel of a 70's picture with his filmmaking style. I cant recommend this film enough.
One of 2001's very best.

I grew up in Sweden in the 70's, and can attest to this film being *very* realistic. Well, most of us grew up in regular family households rather than communes like this one - yet the tone, dialogue, props, setting, mood, and plot - all hit the mark exactly. Moodysson is a genius to be able to tell a whole generation's painful rite of passage with such a sense of hilarity and warmth.

Together is a film about a group of twenty-something idealists living in a hippie commune in 1970's Stockholm. The commune is called 'Tillsammans,' or 'Together.'

When the film begins, a woman is faced with separation from her hard-drinking, out-of-control husband. Not knowing where else to go, she moves herself and her two children into the commune, where her soft-spoken and well-meaning but somewhat ineffectual brother is a founding member. In search of a new start, she attempts to fit in with her new-found friends, with somewhat laughable consequences. But some tears fall among the laughter here as well. Her children are torn between missing their father and wanting things to change for the better. Their father's behavior has hurt them deeply, but their new situation, complete with imposed sexuality, and adults who may still be quite child-like themselves, may be hurting them in a different way. Is a better life ahead? Or just a new set of problems?

Separated from his family, the father stumbles and falls in his attempt to be a better father, but he does keep getting up again, and part of the storyline is whether or not he will be able to own up to his problems, and come through as a good father/husband in the end. Meanwhile, the mother is also allowed a new freedom to pursue her own interests and desires, for perhaps the first time since she married. The effects of this change on each member of the family, as well as the members of the newly adopted communal family, are what drive the VW van, er, movie.

Together is a wonderful, funny, heart-felt movie, filled with hope and a genuine respect and admiration for human beings, in all our akwardness and imperfections. The use of Abba in a film has never been better to cue a heartfelt tear, and the solemn and quizzical expressions on the faces of the children when faced with the quirky inhabitants of the commune are priceless. We care about what happens to these kids, and we want to see things work out for them, and for their struggling parents.

Moodyson's innate love of people despite their inevitable follies is something he shares with fellow Swede Lasse Hallstrom, perhaps the best-known contemporary Swedish director in the US (apart from Bergman, of course!). In his view, we all have something to offer. And we can all change for the better, we can all grow. Despite rough waters now and then, with Moodyson at the helm, everything's going to be okay. And sometimes, it's nice to see a film like that.

I had the good fortune to see this film in a theatre in Northern California, where the audience (including more than a few aging hippies) chortled and guffawed with good-natured self-recognition. The opening scenes, -- particularly a drearily, draining, painfully drawn-out, "issue-oriented" house meeting at the politicized/feminist/alternative lifestyle commune where the action takes place -- were a veritable flashback, especially for my companion, who had gone to college in Santa Cruz and had had plenty of exposure to lesbian-feminist process... It was quite funny, but in a loving, self-deprecatory way. Where many would wring laughter out of mockery and stereotyping, the director here was truthful and honest, and gave the characters the respect and depth they deserved. The interplay and fluidity between "straight" and "alternative" culture is handled with exeptional skill, particularly as seen through the eyes of two children who are thrown in the midst of the well-intentioned but disorganized soul-searching of the older generation. And for those of us who grew up in the 1970s and were exposed to similar cultural experimentation, the dual dangers and priceless opportunities of the "hippie" era are brought back in a heart-warming but not overly sentimental way. This film rings true in every way; like Richard Linklatter's "Dazed And Confused," it should be viewed by anyone who'd like to see what the 'Seventies were *really* like.

Together is a Swedish comedy about a group of people living together in an intentional house. It follows the relationships of the members and people who are associated with the house. Its focus is always on the paradox of relationships: our need to be together and our need to be apart. Yet, it never addresses these issues seriously but finds the humour in our human circumstance. Although it presents serious issues such as spousal abuse, child molestation, conflicts in political philosophy and confusion over sexuality, it maintains a light-hearted attitude surrounding the need of the characters to be together. The characters come close to plastic stereotypes of hippies from the seventies, yet this is only because the audience's perspective is almost constantly filtered through the children, the most complex and interesting characters of the film. Surely the representation of the communal living is a way to intensely focus the film's theme as the characters who live traditional lives are made to look every bit as ridiculous as the hippies. From the point of view of the children we understand the futility and clumsy nature of the adult's search for an ideal state of being, yet the struggle to remain together never topples over into the ridiculous as it maintains a genuine sympathy for all the characters involved. While this film shouldn't be taken too seriously, it is a beautiful representation of the difficulty of sustaining successful relationships.

"Together" is a film about a Swedish commune in the 1970s. Life as usual (or unusual) is interrupted when Goren's sister calls to say she's leaving her husband and asks if she can move in with her two children. The collision of this former simple housewife and her two impressionable children with the grab bag bunch of misfits that call the commune home changes everyone and everything.

I enjoyed Moodysson's interpretation of the word "together" throughout the film: in the relationships of the different characters (the zealot socialist, the lesbian, the extreme pacifist, the recalcitrant husband, the lonely divorcee, the perfect housewife and husband), how perceptions of acceptable and unacceptable are questioned (lightly) and how no one seems to have all of the answers.

"Together" reminded me of what it was like to be a kid looking at the oddness of adulthood, and the brother and sister dragged to the commune by their mom do seem to wonder at the simplistic idealism of grown-ups; how little they seemed to understand; how many mistakes and embarrassing things grown-ups seemed to do.

I laughed often, but I was also moved by how Moodysson could capture the simplicity and wonder of two people connecting. A very worthy film.

Together won't shake the world, but I'll almost guarantee it will put an enormous on your face.

One reviewer complained about the number of characters - but that's not only the charm of the movie - but its very premise! Certainly there is an amount of predictability but the cast is so into what they're doing that they are believable and work in true ensemble fashion.

The soundtrack is an awful lot of fun (and sometimes "awful") and the secondary story involving the children and how they adapt to the wacky communal ideals of the adults is thought provoking. The film packs its message with little to no subtlety and none is desired or required here.

As tasty as a Swedish Meatball!

p.

There havn't been many truly funny and endearing films out this year but this film makes up for it ten fold. With all the misery and devastation that is being broadcast at the moment this is your retreat. If you enjoyed 'The Dish' then you'll love 'Together' Go and see it now, GO ON!!