Together is a Swedish period film set in a commune in the winter of 1975 and stars the recently departed thespian Michael Nyquist in one of his earlier feature film appearances. The movie examines how individuals transform when introduced to ideas outside of their customary ways of thinking which catalyzes an epiphany that the status quo, whether conventional or not, does not work and the joyous effect of that change on a community when it results in mutually beneficial common ground.
Even though I enjoyed Together, the camera work and editing felt more like a truncated TV series made to fit a feature film length and format. The movie examines three separate homes at nadirs in the dwellers’ lives. The commune may be governed by ideals, but it is rife with philosophical conflict that disguises dissatisfaction with existing relationships and unfulfilled desires as individuals. The commune’s neighbors, a married couple and son who clutch their pearls at their neighbors’ antics hide sexual frustration and only find communion with each other in their disdain for others. The other home is rife with dysfunction and physical abuse, but the wife’s open acknowledgment of her problem and unwillingness to uphold the fiction of a happy home plants the seeds of transformation for each location and individual when she leaves her home for the commune where her brother lives. Her honest approach to conflict and faithfulness to her identity and self-worth helps other characters confront what is lacking in their daily lives homes and makes them willing to disrupt the illusion of community.
Nyquist is almost unrecognizable as the alcoholic super who undergoes the most credible dramatic character transformation and imbues what could have been a cliché role with a tender pathos that made it easier to sympathize with him. His scenes with a tenant are emblematic of an ongoing theme discussed at my church: the need for men to have substantial, not superficial, friendships. Together does not fully develop, but does parallel the father’s underdeveloped emotional palette with his son’s proclivity to react to pain by inflicting pain (I hope that snail is alright). Even in an anti-violent community like the commune, little boys play Pinochet and take turns torturing each other. There is also a pot stirrer member, Lasse, who tries to provoke every member of the community until he sacrifices his idea of being a normal male with the reality of what he did not know that he wanted, a relationship not founded on philosophical ideals as his ex tries to achieve, but in response to a reality that clashes with his image of himself. Another member of the commune is less effective at rejecting his masculine inheritance and just exchanges it for another stereotype. The women also navigate similar moments of self-discovery, but with less intriguing results.
Together’s most provocative moments are two images of abuse that out of context are wrong, but in context, I cheered. The brother has consciously abandoned masculine gender norms of competitiveness and possessiveness, but has also abdicated his right to anger and to expressing what he wants in a relationship. In his effort to create a fictional unity, there are no authentic, intimate relationships and community, which is problematic for everyone, but in particular, with his girlfriend, who initially is amusing as a woman in search of sexual fulfillment, but exhibits signs of becoming a predator, which he does not know. It would have been healthier for him to verbally change the terms of their agreement before exploding, but I rationalized that on some level, people can subconsciously sense fuckery even if they do not verbally acknowledge it.
Together demands that people stop trying to fit into certain images of what should be and do what works for you, whether it is admitting that you prefer ABBA or meat or that you are gay, lonely or hurt. There is nudity and sexual situations, but they are not gratuitous and germane to the plot. There are subtitles and while I enjoyed the movie, I do not think that it is so terrific that if you don’t normally watch movies with subtitles, this should probably not be your initial foray into that world.