besides the oblique jabs which consist of the inclusion of a "crazy hippie aunt" or "weird psychic/naturopath", i feel like movies in general shy away from critically examining political and social liberalism in a serious way (i'm not counting outright satires like Allen's "everyone says i love you"). bucking that trend (as i perceive it), "Together" offers a sizable helping of pros and cons concerning practices like communal living, political sexuality, and liberal parenting. Though aspects of radical counter-culture are introduced as stark theoretical oppositions to mainstream family values, the narrative allows a much more complex exploration of the left-leaning continuum to take place. By the still-uncertain (but happy anyway) denouement, we've gotten to know left-wing counterparts to every right-wing stereotype: the protective parent, the self-serving hypocrite, the political evangelist, the sheepish proponent of the most idealistic version of hir beliefs (in place of the right's "american dream" of freedom to prosper is the left's ideal of "harmonious equality" in which the group prospers because of the altruism of its members), and so on. all this anthropological/sociological documentary (the zooms, quick turns, and handheldiness of the camera work are reminiscent of early, possible-to-presume-unscripted reality shows) is part of a complete narrative package, with interesting and interwoven plot lines and a really great brother-sister-parallel-yelling-at-significant-others scene. the subtitles on netflix's disc were definitely shoddy, but who doesn't love listening to Swedish, even if there are big holes in the translation.
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