30/10/2023 - Lukas Moodysson’s sequel to his 2000 hit is little more than a nostalgic, somewhat reactionary update on protagonists whom viewers are expected to remember perfectly
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With the recent announcement by its exiled founder that the Body Shop is an empty shell of commercialism, the 1970s, I suppose, are now officially over. “Together,” a sly, satirical Swedish film, shows the decade coming apart as early as 1975. In a commune in Stockholm, a mixed bag of adults, some with children, try to live according to their ideals, while human nature does its best to force them toward compromise, corruption, and--worst of all--realism.
Watching the film awakened memories of the time: a mother protesting against the gender-coding of pink and blue children's blankets. Arguments about men doing the dishes. Denouncements of Pippi Longstocking as a materialist and capitalist. A child named Tet, after the North Vietnamese offensive. “Open relationships,” which have a way of ending in no relationships at all. By the time the kids start picketing for the right to eat meat, we see their point.