You, the Living, Finally in the US

You, the Living [Du levande] - dir. Roy Andersson - 2007 - Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark/Norway/Japan - Palisades Tartan

Over two years after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, Roy Andersson's astounding You, the Living, a sequel of sorts to Songs from the Second Floor from 2000, finally makes its official US premiere in New York this week after being left in limbo after Tartan Films USA closed its doors. For those familiar with Songs from the Second Floor, You, the Living is a continuation of Andersson's vibrant style and bizarre humor, chronicling moments in the lives of a selective group of a Sweden city.

While Songs from the Second Floor was shrouded in a grim, apocalyptic tone, most of those who've seen You, the Living have agreed that what separates the two is the latter's beaming serenity. One sequence in particular, involving a young newlywed couple in a moving house, is one of the most spectacularly incandescent scenes I've seen in a really long time. You, the Living is just one of the amazing films from some of the most dazzling filmmakers from around the world that will make its US premiere, after dangling in distribution oblivion, this year. Keep your eye out for György Pálfi's Taxidermia in August from here! Films and Ulrich Seidl's Import/Export, also from Palisades Tartan.

Silent Light Coming to DVD; You, the Living and Taxidermia Coming to the Theatre

Through Vivendi Visual, Palisades Tartan will release their first two DVDs in the US in September. Carlos Reygadas' Silent Light [Stellet licht] will finally be out on 9 Sept, along with Anders Morgenthaler's animated actioner Princess on 29 Sept. Vivendi also announced Aaron Woodley's Tennessee, starring none other than Mariah Carey, on 1 September. Additionally, Kino will be releasing Emily Hubley's The Toe Tactic and Sean Baker and Tsou Shih-Ching's Take Out on 1 September. Magnet will have Ringo Lam, Johnny To and Tsui Hark's Triangle on 15 September. And, my pick for best title of the year so far goes to Life Is Hot in Cracktown, which Anchor Bay will release on 25 August. It also is ranking on the list of strangest casts of the year (Lara Flynn Boyle, Illeana Douglas, RZA, Brandon Routh, Kerry Washington, Mark Webber and Vondie Curtis-Hall); let me know if the film is as good as it sounds.

Surprisingly, I haven't heard of really any post-Cannes acquisitions, aside from Oscilloscope's pick-up of Michel Gondry's The Thorn in the Heart [L'épine dans le coeur]. However, it looks as if Roy Andersson's You, the Living [Du levande] and György Pálfi's Taxidermia, both previously stuck in release limbo after Tartan USA died, will finally see a theatrical release this year from Palisades Tartan, who picked up most of their library, and Regent Releasing, respectively.

Music Box Films have two German films lined up for later this year, the old-people-fucking flick Cloud 9 [Wolke 9] from director Andreas Dresdon (Summer in Berlin) and music video director Philipp Stölzl's North Face [Nordwand] with Benno Fürmann and Johanna Wokalek.

In addition to Lucrecia Martel's The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza], Strand also has a number of films lined up for later this year: Pascal-Alex Vincent's Give Me Your Hand [Donne-moi la main]; Pablo Trapero's Lion's Den [Leonera]; Noah Buschel's The Missing Person, with Michael Shannon and Amy Ryan; Jay DiPietro's Peter and Vandy, with Jess Weixler, Jason Ritter and Tracie Thoms; and Karin Albou's The Wedding Song [Le chant des mariées].

Regent Releasing picked up Lucía Puenzo's follow-up to her wonderful XXY, The Fish Child [El niño pez], which also stars Inés Efron, a few months ago. Regent will also release Eran Merav's Zion & His Brother, with Ronit Elkabetz, in the near future. That's all for now.

The Decade List: Sånger från andra våningen (2000)

Sånger från andra våningen [Songs from the Second Floor] - dir. Roy Andersson

Described by many as set in the near future, that's a claim I'm not sure is supported by the film itself. One of the characters takes up business in selling crucifixes, exploiting the Christian population's strife to cling to religion, stating it's hard to beat a two-thousand year anniversary. Now this could refer to the anniversary of Jesus' crucifixion, but I somehow doubt it. And yet, it doesn't particularly matter when Roy Andersson's brilliant Songs from the Second Floor is set, because during our current economic crisis, the film holds even more weight and significance than when it was released nine years ago. Set somewhere in Sweden, the grief of a dying economy spreads among the city; it even calls to mind a recent Saturday Night Live segment in which Björk, played by Kristen Wiig, discusses the economic hardships in Iceland, with the country's bail-out consisting of the prime minister tying all the country's wealth to a horse and running it into the sea. Songs from the Second Floor was Andersson's third feature, his first in twenty-five years.

In Songs from the Second Floor, Andersson crafts single-take, deep-focus shots of boiling frenzy with its lid on, absurdist comedy at its finest. No explanation is really given to the recession, but it affects the entire town in Altmanesque fashion, with the film's central character Kalle (Lars Nordh) resorting to burning down his own furniture store for insurance money. The recession has turned into a plague of sorts, taking, not least of which, rationale with it. Kalle takes the subway and meets his youngest son Stefan (Stefan Larsson) at a bar covered in soot after his bit of arson and even screams like a craz(ier) person at his institutionalized son Tomas (Peter Roth), who "wrote poetry and drove himself nuts." In these hard times, there's feeble attempts at "upholding history and tradition," which meets its greatest failure when it sacrifices a young girl for the country's strength.

Though a statement like this can be made about most films, writing about Songs from the Second Floor does little justice. Songs from the Second Floor is howlingly funny, in ways I think only matched by Federico Fellini (especially that fashion show in Roma). Thankfully, the film wasn't followed by another artistic disappearance from Andersson, who followed the film up seven years later with You, the Living, a similarly-styled "poem" of lost souls in his native country. It's the second part of a planned trilogy, one which has a helluva lot to live up to.

With: Lars Nordh, Stefan Larsson, Bengt C.W. Carlsson, Torbjörn Fahlström, Sten Andersson, Hanna Eriksson, Peter Roth, Tommy Johansson, Sture Olsson
Screenplay: Roy Andersson
Cinematography: István Borbás, Jesper Klevenas, Robert Komarek
Music: Benny Andersson
Country of Origin: Sweden/Norway/Denmark
US Distributor: New Yorker Films

Premiere: May 2000 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 17 August 2001 (San Francisco)

Awards: Jury Prize (Cannes Film Festival)