Director: Lukas Moodysson
Country: Sweden
Year: 2000
Runtime: 106 minutes
Swedish with English Subtitles
Awards: Paris Film Festival - Special Jury Prize, Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema - Jury Award Best Feature, Pula Film Festival - Special Mention European Competition, Seattle International Film Festival - New Director's Showcase Award, Stockholm Film Festival - FIPRESCI Award Best Nordic Film, Taos Talking Picture Festival - Taos Land Grant Award, Newport International Film Festival - Special Jury Award
This is a complex portrayal of a commune during the 1970's. The large cast of characters idealists, ideologues, gays, lesbians, conservative neighbors, children swept up in the group's social revolution, an abused mother and her immature husband, and an elderly loner – is developed in rich and sympathetic detail. The opposition that drives the story of TOGETHER is set early in the film in an intense but comically treated discussion of a fine point of sexual ideology when Goran, the commune's leader arrives with his sister Elisabeth and her two children, who are seeking refuge from domestic violence. As Elisabeth discovers freedom and possibility, her new friends reluctantly discover the limits human nature imposes on idealism. Experimentation with roles and relationships leaves deeply strained emotions, and the political correctness of utopian beliefs prevents those strains from showing. The tension is high, builds higher yet, and then explodes in a startling climax. Plot, dialogue and character development are brilliantly deployed in this film, weaving a tapestry of life through multiple viewpoints. The result is an exquisitely choreographed film that is a chronicle of a peculiar time in our recent past and a portrayal of the timeless contradiction between social and individual needs. (Synopsis by the Newport International Film Festival.)
Director Bio:
Lukas Moodysson published a collection of poetry when he was seventeen, followed by several books of poetry and a short novel. Show Me Love was his first feature that received great critical and commercial success. Tillsammans is his second feature.
Filmography:
2000 Tillsammans
1998 Show Me Love
1997 Bara prata lite
1996 Uppgörelse i den undre världen, En
1995 Det var en mörk och stormig natt
Producer: Lars Jönsson
Screenplay: Lukas Moodysson
Cinematography: Ulf Brantas
Editing: Michael Lesszczylowski
Principal Cast: Lisa Lindgren, Michael Nyquist, Gustaf Hammarsten, Cecilia Frode, Sten Ljunggren
Website Link: http://www.together-thefilm.com/