SIFF Cinema is Back!

After wrapping up the film festival in June, SIFF Cinema went on hiatus, because of the economy and the monies and so on and so forth (see: the Northwest Film Forum scrambling for cash last month). But now that summer is over, the Cinema is opening up again, starting tonight with You, the Living, the latest from absurdist Swedish director Roy Andersson.  I haven't seen it just yet, but it sounds as if it's a vignette-a-palooza:

Only the fourth feature from the great Swedish auteur Roy Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor), You, the Living is, like its award-winning predecessor, comprised of a series of meticulously wrought tableaux that illustrate the human condition. Both comic and sad, it’s above all a film about the vulnerability of human beings. The characters represent different facets of human existence. They face problems, large and small, that range from issues of day-to-day survival to the big philosophical questions.

Linked by recurring lines of dialogue and situations, the tableaux show misunderstandings and mistakes, dreams and desires, unfolding in a world that’s frequently absurd and unsympathetic. Andersson has described the film as a “mosaic of human destinies” on the theme of “how to behave around others.” Defying conventional cinematic narrative structures and playing out in Andersson’s inimitable film language, You, the Living shows that life is complicated for everyone and that humor and music are saving graces.

Check out the rest of the fall SIFF calendar here, and be sure to catch a film or two, so the Cinema doesn't have to close again anytime soon! My suggestion: the benefit screening of The Boys are Back September 24th.