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Films
Together
Thomas Wartenberg watches a radical movie about some unlikely couples grappling with homophobia, feminist ideology and each other in a 1970s Swedish commune… and enjoys it!
There’s an important moment in Lukas Moodysson’s film, Together (2000), when Klas (Shanti Roney), a gay man with serious doubts about ever finding a lover, approaches Lasse (Ola Norell), a heterosexual man on whom he has a crush. The scene takes place in Lasse’s bedroom in an eponymously named left-wing commune in Sweden in 1975. Lasse’s wife Anna (Jessica Liedberg) has left him because she has decided it is politically correct to be a lesbian and throughout the film we have seen Lasse watching her, in pain and anger, as she clumsily attempts to initiate sexual relationships with other women who come to the commune. Lasse isn’t the only character watching these encounters, however, for the film also shows us Klas watching the watcher, his own unsatisfied desire evident.
At this crucial moment, Klas has been emboldened to directly approach Lasse, despite the fact that he is a confirmed heterosexual, and try, once more, to seduce him, only this time he opts for a direct approach.
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