a surreal still life that provokes the audience to find the absurdity rather than the tragedy
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10/04/09
You, the Living (2009)
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Reviews Counted:34
Fresh:34
Rotten:0
Average Rating:7.7/10
Consensus: Composed of humorous sketches of human behavior, Roy Andersson's You, the Living is an eccentric but highly entertaining and unforgettable work.
Theatrical Release:Jul 29, 2009 Limited
Synopsis: Film Forum is proud to present the U.S. theatrical premiere of Roy Andersson’s You, The Living, an absurdist take on the everyday foibles of human nature. Andersson couples his iconic visual style... [More]
Director: Roy Andersson
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Reviews for You, the Living
You, the Living suggests that we would do well to discover the joy we find in each other that so often goes along with the pain.
09/18/09
Top CriticEssentially indescribable, You, the Living offers little help to anyone trying to get a handle on it in terms of a traditional narrative. But it can be quite funny if you're susceptible to Andersson's curious way of capturing the human comedy.
09/10/09
“Keaton-esque” hardly begins to describe this brutally deadpan comedy by Swedish director Roy Andersson (Songs From the Second Floor), who seems to have translated the entire range of human misery into a loosely connected series of slapstick gags.
08/20/09
Top CriticThe result is in some ways a comedy with a twist of the knife, and in other ways, a film like nobody else has ever made -- except for its director, Roy Andersson of Sweden. Andersson’s You, the Living is hypnotic.
08/20/09
Top CriticThe lack of narrative cohesion eventually starts to wear, but the episodes and images are memorable.
08/14/09
Surreal and absurd, yet oddly captivating and filled with a dry, sardonic sense of humor, stunning visuals along with provocative critiques of modern society.
07/30/09
You, The Living, if only by virtue of a more intimate scale than Songs, benefits from a lightness of touch and even a thin sliver of optimism in some sequences.
07/30/09
The actors' skin is zombie-palled with plastery powder, like a fallout of some unknown catastrophe -- and the film is aptly bookended by apocalypse, a dream-premonition that's called back as a punchline.
07/30/09
Top CriticNo one views the world like Roy Andersson does. That fact alone is enough to recommend the Swedish director’s latest collection of interconnected, often single-take vignettes.
07/30/09
Presenting the funniest movie of 2009 (so far). It's You, the Living, a collec tion of 50 absurdist sketches written and directed by Roy Andersson, a talented gentleman from Sweden.
07/29/09
Top CriticRoy Andersson’s film is slow, rigorously morose and often painful in its blunt reckoning of disappointment and failure. It is also extremely funny.
07/29/09
Top CriticMore laughs -- belly-deep, thought-provoking ones -- are to be had in the first 10 minutes of Roy Andersson’s You, the Living than in all of Judd Apatow’s Funny People.
07/29/09
Andersson's tableaus of the everyday are full of feeling, especially from the women (probably after a drink or two).
07/28/09
Andersson is, at heart, an expert absurdist; to him, there is meaning in the meaningless and salvation in the ridiculous
07/28/09
Dreams figure prominently in You, the Living, which posits reveries as articulations of--or refuges from--deep-seated fears.
07/26/09
Some of the sketches don't really work or don't blend with their cousins, but the snapshot approach means they are short.
08/03/08
Made of 50 short, stiff scenes of human behavior, shot as dispassionately as wildlife, Andersson is either stretching the definition of cinema or returning it to its roots
06/27/08
A cold soup mix of Buster Keaton, David Lynch, Jerry Lewis and Terry Gilliam, hawking deadpan jokes as well as chilly, disheartening mean streaks in his blocky, deep-space single takes.
06/07/08
Jacques Tati’s puckish humor meets Ingmar Bergman’s angst in this erratic, eccentric gem.
04/17/08
Top CriticLatest News for You, the Living
July 30, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Funny People Is Ambitious But Uneven
This week at the movies, we've got the tears of a clown (Funny People, starring Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen), extra-terrestrial visitors upstairs (Aliens in the Attic, starring... More...
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