Think Ingmar Bergman with a mischievous sense of humour: At 32, filmmaker Lukas Moodysson is an integral member of the new generation of Swedes making intensely personal films about how people really live, love and squabble.
His feature debut was the astonishing drama F...ing Amal -- also known as Show Me Love -- a vibrant film dealing with the issue of teen lesbianism.
Now Moodysson's second feature, Together, has made it into Toronto theatres after being seen in Sweden in the year 2000. It is more of a twisted Nordic soap opera.
Together is set in 1975 in a Stockholm commune populated with a motley group of screwed-up people who fuss about leftist politics, vegetarianism, open relationships, free sex, gay and lesbian love and assorted other crunchy granola issues.
Meanwhile, the commune is dysfunctional because individuals don't do their share of the housework, one man's girlfriend can't have an orgasm unless she's in bed with someone else, and the children in the house think their parents are nuts.
The place is finally turned topsy turvy -- it will either self-destruct or transform into something worthwhile -- when newcomers arrive. A mother of two (played by the robust actress Lisa Lindgren, the soul of this film) has been beaten once too often by her drunken boyfriend (Michael Nyqvist).
So she brings the kids to the commune because her brother (Gustav Hammarsten, the film's other strong adult performance) is a member there. He is also a soft touch, a concilliator who tries to make everyone happy, except himself.
In Moodysson's world, however, real happiness doesn't come from people living together for socio-political reasons. It turns out that the commune needs the shakeup to get the right people aligned to work out all their problems.
As usual in a Moodysson film, the best insights come from the kids. In particular, the two child newcomers (played wonderfully by Emma Samuelsson and Sam Kessel) are given the job of carrying the emotional weight of the piece. At one point, Samuelsson's character tells a friend that: "All adults are idiots!" The way the commune members act, she is right and that is both pathetic, in a theatrical sense, and funny.
Together is not a heavyweight piece, although it touches on important issues. But it is not cheap entertainment, either. Through Moodysson's deft writing and simple, unadorned direction, the actors are allowed to turn their characters into an interesting group of real people who engage us fully in their small adventure. That is what Bergman used to do, too, albeit with a lot more angst and a lot less playfulness.
(This film is rated R)
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