Margin Rockers: We Are the Best! (2013, dir. Lukas Moodysson, Sweden)
by Matt Olsen
I’ve taken a lot of liberties over the past few weeks with the idea that this series is about rock “biopics” and I’m continuing that leniency with this film. I’m going to go ahead and not get hung up on that rubric. Yes, this is a story about a (punk) rock band, based on an autobiographical graphic novel by the writer/director’s wife, Coco Moodysson, but by all accounts, it is a loose adaption and probably more fiction than not. As a story of people on the margins of mainstream music, though, it couldn’t be more appropriate. We Are the Best! covers about a year in the lives of three early-1980s Stockholm thirteen-year-old girls who form a band despite only one of them knowing how to play an instrument. This is my favorite movie.
Favorite Films are different from Greatest Films. The scale of this film is small and I’ve read more than one inexplicably non-laudatory review so it’s not likely to ever be included among the likes of Rashomon, Scenes from a Marriage, or Casablanca. But I contend that as a portrait of real human dynamics and emotions it is as honest as anything you could put up against it. Though I’ve never (yet!) been a thirteen-year-old Swedish girl in the early 1980s and my own experience with punk came later and to a lesser degree than the characters here, I find this film as relatable as any I’ve seen. It perfectly captures the chaos and confusion of adolescence while not ignoring the almost uncontainable joy of finding those new and “secret” connections in the world outside your family.
Unlike many teen-based movies, the fully realized authenticity of the characters extends to the parents. The story is definitely the girls’ but each of their family lives are treated with compassion and depth and not just as fodder for the leads’ character motivations. A scene where two of the girls’ actions result in a confrontation with the other girl’s mother is particularly outstanding. The adult responds to the girls’ evasions of responsibility with a strained patience and palpable empathy. “Learning a lesson” is a trope in nearly every coming-of-age movie but it's rarely presented as it is here, without a hint of condescension. A clear conflict resolution (or even acknowledgement) isn’t reached among these characters and that’s fantastic – no one changes over a cup of coffee.
The three leads are as excellent as they are different from each other which is even more astounding since this film marked their acting debut. It’s easy (but not inaccurate) to overuse the word “authentic” in describing the characters of WAtB! and their performances are key to that. I’d suggest that the greatness of this film lies in the complexity of the three girls’ interaction. Bobo, Klara, and Hedvig exist as unique individuals in this world but when they are together it’s a ballet of social dominance, resentment, uncertainty, exhilaration, and cohesion. The push and pull of their friendship propels the story exactly as much as the more direct narrative: starting a band.
The excitement and incompetence of the girls’ first attempt at creating music will feel immediately familiar to anyone who ever picked up a guitar or pounded a piano for the first time. Pure wonder and exhilaration. The story takes what might seem like a standard path from inception to exhibition, ending at the group’s first time on stage in front of an audience. When the finale arrives, it’s thankfully not that simple. The group’s performance can’t be categorized as an obvious success of failure. It’s a shambolic explosion of joy and obstinacy – which, according to my understanding of the issue, is extremely punk.
Matt Olsen is a largely unemployed part-time writer and even more part-time commercial actor living once again in Seattle after escaping from Los Angeles like Kurt Russell in that movie about the guy who escapes from Los Angeles.