<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Jessika Lundberg as Anna<br />
<br />
<br />
You, the Living (Swe: Du levande) is a 2007 written and directed by Swedish director Roy Andersson. It premiered at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, as part of the Un Certain Regard selection [1].<br />
The film is an exploration on the "grandeur of existence"[2], centered around the lives of an overweight woman, a disgruntled psychiatrist, a heart broken groupie, a carpenter, a business consultant, an elementary school teacher with emotional issues and her rug selling husband, among others. The basis for the film is claimed to be an old proverb, "Man is man's joy," taken from Hvaml in the Poetic Edda. The title is taken from a quote by Goethe, which is also shown as a title card right in the beginning of the film: "Be pleased then, you the living, in your delightfully warmed bed, before Lethe's ice-cold wave will lick your escaping foot."<br />
Shot in an unconventional manner, it consists of a fluent succession of exactly 50 short sketches, all except one filmed in one take. Most of them have a tragicomic undertone. It utilizes a combination of alienating techniques such as presenting the characters in grim make-up and having them talk to the camera, turning them into vessels for the message of the movie.<br />
The film won the audience award at the 2008 Gothenburg Film Festival[3] and has received positive reviews.[4][5]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
