INVOLUNTARY

DE OFRIVILLIGA

(Sweden, 2008, 98 mins)

35mm

North American Premiere

Cast: Cecilia Milocco, Villmar Bjorkman, Linnea Cart-Lamy, Leif Edlund, Sara Eriksson
Producer: Erik Hemmendorff
Executive Producers: Gunnar Carlsson, Tomas Eskilsson
Director of Photography: Marius Dybwad Brandrud
Editor: Ruben Ostlund
Sound Design: Jan Alvermark

It’s almost summer in Sweden. Throughout the city, people are engaging in minor indiscretions and misbehavior. Leffe likes to show off for his friends and play salacious pranks, especially when he’s drinking. A righteous grade-school teacher doesn’t know where to draw the line: she insists her fellow educators need a bit of instruction. And two young teenage girls who like to party and pose for sexy photos go a few steps too far. Inflected with an edgy, urban realism and dark, laconic wit, INVOLUNTARY offers an astute meditation on the intermingling of humans in our modern world. It's innovative in form, defiantly deeper in tone than a mere series of comic vignettes, and beautifully enacted by its ensemble cast. Director Ruben Ostlund writes about the germ of the idea behind the stories: “I played a computer game. The aim was to build and maintain a city. It was played from a bird’s eye perspective, with humans represented by small dots. One press of the icon resulted in pandemonium amongst the inhabitants. I felt that through the emotional distance, I was able to observe in an interested yet distanced manner, without judging and without any feelings of discomfort.” Ostlund replicates this effect, with astonishing success, with INVOLUNTARY.

INVOLUNTARY was selected for Cannes Official Selection “Un Certain regard” 2008.

-- Shaz Bennett

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