Kollektivet (The Commune)

I know open relationships can work because I've met people who have rationally embraced free love without jealously descending into the wild frenzied madness that structures so many monogamously themed narratives.

When I listen to sex people tell their lusty tales of spontaneous syntheses and unbridled inspiration, I often wonder how their stable relationship continues to thrive over the years, yet years later still see them dating the same people, and neither partner claims to be consumed by purest envy.

They say it's a matter of maturity.

I still don't get it.

Kollektivet (The Commune) examines a stable relationship that is challenged by the introduction of a third element, who is plainly a much younger version of the man's original life partner.

The mother of his child.

She's seeking change to alleviate mid-life meaninglessness and argues that they should transform their recently inherited house into a lively commune.

She isn't psychologically equipped to sublimate her true feelings, however, and eventually finds herself struggling to logically endure.

More like Cassavete's A Woman Under the Influence than Lukas Moodysson's Tillsammans (Together), Thomas Vinterberg's Kollektivet cruelly illustrates the detrimental effects of a hasty big picture alteration, an incredible paradigm shift, as sure and steady security promotes basic instinct.

I was deceived by Kollektivet myself.

I was hoping to see a multidimensional film wherein which multiple characters were developed and nuanced as they cohesively embraced collective conflict as one.

I suppose it is unpredictable inasmuch as it primarily focuses on the deterioration of a nuclear family rather than the challenges of communal life, but I didn't rent a film about a commune to see what manifold more traditional storylines tend to generate.

The other individuals living within the commune receive little to no character development and bluntly interact throughout as originally presented, the occasional clever comment or the purchase of a dishwasher notwithstanding.

Decisions are made rather quickly as well, as if something as serious as starting a commune and giving away your house is like tying your shoes or trying Indonesian food for the first time.

Kollektivet atypically narrativizes life in a commune thereby tricking its traditional audience into watching the bizarro mainstream.

A dire preachy warning for the experimental, a harsh validation of conjugal revenge, it heartbreakingly explores/justifies adulterous instincts commonly depicted as characteristics of the alpha-male, who ironically wanted nothing to do with them, without sympathy for his partner, a daughter torn apart along the way.

An excruciating attempt to find a way to exonerate misogyny.