You, The Living (EOTWS)

End Of The Week Shorts #10 extract: You, The Living (2007)

Absurdly brilliant and quite possibly a new personal favourite, You, The Living is a narrative City Symphony focused on the inhabitants of a Swedish city (Lethe). With silent films aesthetics - simply shot types and some strong mise en scene - this is a ridiculously immersive and subtle dark comedy that has no internal structuring that makes much sense, but pulls together to produce a surprisingly profound commentary on society. In such, You, The Living is focused on mundanity and dissatisfaction in the modern world. 

My favourite aspect of the movie features a jaded psychologist who says (paraphrasing) that the people he deals with are mean, yet demand happiness, and so aren't worth talking to, which is why he just prescribes them pills. And such, speaks to both the tone and sensibilities of this film's commentary on humanity. It is equal parts beautiful and nihilistic, leaving it poetically inert and freakishly meaningful.