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COME [W [‘il-‘xmfir YOU, THE LIVING (15) 93min 0..

In an unnamed Nordic city a moustachioed tuba-player starts talking about savings and pensions, while making love to his wife who is wearing a military helmet. A dog is dragged along a pavement, attached to the walker of its elderly owner. A barber takes revenge on a racist customer with the tools of his trade. The house of a newlywed couple is revealed to be part of a moving train. Just a few of the bizarre 50 or so vignettes that constitute Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson‘s You, the Living, his first feature since 2000‘s apocalyptic Songs from the Second Floor.

The director boldly dispenses with a traditional narrative. Shooting almost entirely in his own Stockholm studio, he instead presents the viewer with a series of precisely framed tableaux. He prefers to

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photograph in deep focus using wide-angle lenses and avoiding close-up shots, whilst the washed-out pastel colours, soft lighting and pale make-up of the cast lend a ghostly sensibility to the images. The boundaries between dreams and ‘reality‘ are freely blurred. not least when a character describes his nightmare of screwing up a tablecloth trick at a dinner party. Andersson has described You, the Living, whose title derives from a line from Goethe, as ‘a farce about the human condition‘. It‘s certainly a lugubriously comic film in the way it observes the faltering efforts of its subjects to cope with their everyday lives, yet there are fleeting moments of hopefulness in its otherwise absurdist vision. After all, in the words of the irascible bartender calling last orders, ‘tomorrow is another day.’ (Tom Dawson) I ‘.\_.-"‘ r "

Name Mrr‘naei l’rtt

Born It) ApnT WHY. West Orange. New Jerse‘. Background Haunt; mmerl to New York City aded I‘d. studied drama, (lirtIr‘dIrérl on stage and been talent spotted tor a part rn the IV drama Dawson}: (:IMPA. boyrshly pretty Pitt 't'rasted no trme rn establrshrng hrmseit as, an actor ready and WrIIrnu to do extreme and r‘Irstrnctrve IrIms; Hrs trrst two trims of note were John Cameron Mrtrfhell‘s trar ssexual rock'n‘roll rrrusrcal Hedmg and the Arron Inch and l, any Clark's Bu/ly Prtl't; brg break came wrth Bernardo Bertoluccn"; sexually explrrnt romantrr: drama, The l)rearrrer::. Srnce then, he's chosen to work With rdrosynmalrr: trlrrrmakers. most notably Gus Van Sant. who made Pitt‘s; tavourrte movre My Own Private Idaho and who (Irrected hrrrr as a Kurt Cobarn aIrke rrrUSrcran rn Last Days. What’s he up to now? Prtt rs; currently working) on OIryer Stone's Vretnam My Lar massacre movre. Pin/(wile, and Abel Ferrara's prequel to The Krrrg of New York. Per/ale // Nero. We'll next see hrrn playrng a preppy serral krIIer rn lvlrchael I'Ianeke's Englrsh language. shottor shot remake of hrs chrlling postmodern slasher. Funny Games.

What he says about Funny Games US 'I watched the orrgrnal, and rt angered me because I thought It was horrible. But rt's really. really good I met Mrchael and I knew this guy was gerng to make me a better actor. Some drrectors set up a scenarro and see what happens. and then some directors make rt happen exactly the way they want rt. I was yen; open about not agreeing wrth Mrchael's deCrSron to do Funny Games US shot-tor-shot, Now. havrng seen the film, I thrnk rt was the rrght thrng to do. But rt was no rnOre enjoyable to make than it rs fOr an audrence to watch.‘ Interesting fact The same year that he made The Dreamers. Prtt aIso played a character named Gopher rrr the John Hormes porn star bioprc. Wonder/and. Yet. all hrs scenes were cut. 80 no money shot. (Miles Frelder)

I Funny Games US is on selected re/ease from Frr 4 Apr.

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