Episode 735 - Alive (2020)

Hi everyone!

Welcome back for another Indie Wednesday. Every Wednesday we like to feature a microbudget or independent production, and sometimes we’re lucky enough to chat with the filmmakers themselves. Today, I’ll be reviewing ALIVE, the latest short by Swedish filmmaker Jimmy Olsson, which takes a fun look at sex and ableism. We’ll hear a few snippets from our interview with Jimmy during this review, but for a few other similar episodes, check out our reviews for TURBINES (Episode #721), CLOSURE (Episode #707), and SANDOW (Episode #693).

We’ll have a bit of format switch today. Before the review, I’ll run the audio for the full teaser trailer for ALIVE. Check the show notes for a link to the video, along with English subtitles for those who need them. Throughout the review, I’ll be splicing in segments from our short interview. You can listen to the full interview on our Patreon page this coming Sunday. I was very thankful for the opportunity to speak with Jimmy Olsson.

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Here we go!

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<< ALIVE TEASER PROMO >>

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Today’s movie is ALIVE(2020), the dramatic short written and directed by Jimmy Olsson. Victoria (Eva Johansson) was a combat athlete until she suffered a brain hemorrhage, leaving her partially paralyzed and with a case of aphasia. She’s cared for by Ida (Madeleine Martin), who helps her with regular tasks and transportation, and spends time with her boyfriend Anton (Philip Oros). When Victoria asks Ida if anyone would want to be intimate with her, they create Victoria a Tinder page, which leads to a tense moment.

No spoilers.

Growing up in rural Illinois during the 1980s and 1990s, I didn’t have much interaction with the disabled community. Most of my exposure was with individuals who were once able-bodied, but lost a limb, or had acquired a degenerative illness. It was also the vast majority of the noble depictions of the disabled community on the big and small screen, and it gave me the mistaken impression that being disabled was a matter of bad luck or old age. It didn’t help that our district’s approach to specialized education at the time was grouping and isolating them, and the big and small screen gleefully mocked those individuals.

It wasn’t until college when I met someone with cerebral palsy that I had my own notions challenged. It forced me to greatly expand my notion of what disabled meant and how it affected people differently. It also made me want to see more realistic depictions of the community in film and television. The last twenty years have seen a great expansion for representation, beginning with mostly token roles and expanding into multiple shows and feature films. Which made me wonder where Jimmy got the idea.

JIMMY: “I listened to a podcast last summer and I heard a similar story about a carer and the disabled person. It was a similar story about a disabled person who wanted to have an, I think it was an escort, or something. There was a moment the carer wasn’t allowed in the disabled person’s home when the escort was arriving. I saw a drama there, if the carer doesn’t know who’s showing up, and what could happen, and what will happen, and who’s fault is it if something goes wrong? That inspired me to write this story.”

One of those topics, previously thought to be taboo about the disabled community, is sex. We speak so much about the social integration of the disabled community that we forget that each person is more than their disability, including very real, very powerful sexual feelings. Film and television abound with able love stories, but ALIVE allows us to consider the possibilities of love and sex for the disabled community in the modern age.

JIMMY: “I think many, many people... many able people have a certain view of disabled people, how they look, and they judge people if they look a certain way or behave a certain way. I think we need to shine a light on disabled people that they are exactly the same as everyone else.”

Victoria, as a character, is obviously central to making ALIVE work as the lead character. Her past as a combat athlete and her present as a disabled person due to injury allows her to appeal to both populations and challenge our perceptions. The film opens with Victoria out with Ida in public, with Olsson capturing shots at Victoria’s wheelchair level. We’re quickly invested into Victoria as a character, getting a sense of how others see her, largely because of the excellent casting of Eva Johansson.

JIMMY: “I saw Eva, and she did a lot of research. She was very interested in the role and so I went with my gut feeling, because she’s a real character actress. She does a lot of theater. She really went into the role immensely, like, she researched for two months before we shot it.”

Aphasia is a difficult condition to replicate, but Eva’s preparation pays off big time, finding the right balance between realism and pacing for cinematic effect. Eva communicates so much with her face and body while Victoria struggles to get the words out. You can feel any misguided expectations melting away as Victoria’s story progresses, especially when the suitor shows up, played by Jimmy Olsson himself. I had to ask him if he wrote the role with himself in mind.

JIMMY: “No, it’s just coincidence. Basically, I did it in my last film as well, but it was basically, because we shot it without money, and the producer said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ And I was like, ‘Ah, what the hell! It’s no dialogue. I look kind of shady. Why not?’”

ALIVE is a dramatic short that challenges our expectations about the disabled community. Coming in just over twenty minutes, Olsson weaves a nicely encapsulated tale, anchored by an incredible, expressive performance by Eva Johansson. Fans of films about the disabled community, or folks looking to expand their notions about the community, should definitely check out this film.

Rotten Tomatoes: NR

Metacritic: NR

One Movie Punch: 8.0/10

ALIVE (2020) is not rated and will be playing at the Cleveland International Film Festival, running from Wednesday, March 25th, 2020 through Sunday, April 5th, 2020. Head over to clevelandfilm.org for more information, including a schedule. We’ll link back to the review here once it’s available for streaming.