“Punk’s dead. Don’t you know that?”
Embarrassing parents and being forced to participate in P.E. class are just some of the things Bobo (Mira Barkhammar), Klara (Mira Grosin) and Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) are rebelling against in Lukas Moodysson’s 2013 coming-of-age comedy We Are the Best!. Based on the graphic novel by Moodysson’s wife, this underrated gem follows three androgynous 13-year-old girls navigating the joys and pains of growing up, while also trying to prove to their peers that punk music is just about the greatest thing ever.
The year is 1982 in Stockholm, and punk is dead – at least, according to everyone at school. Bespectacled Bobo and pixieish Klara are outcasts due to their affinity with the genre, regularly being teased for their short hair and unusual clothes. When the school’s resident heavy metal group fail to reserve a practice spot one evening, the girls take advantage of this and decide to start a punk band of their own, despite owning no instruments and having no musical ability whatsoever (“Do drums have chords?”). Realising they could use some help, they enlist a musically gifted and unpopular Christian girl named Hedvig to join them, with the initial plan to “influence her away from God” – instead, Hedvig delights them with a melodic rendition of one of their favourite punk anthems, while also teaching them about the foreign concepts of chords and harmony.
Barkhammar, Grosin, and LeMoyne play their characters beautifully, trying to come across as infinitely mature and intelligent by shedding light on political and social issues in their songs (“The world is a morgue, but you’re watching Bjorn Borg”), but never straying away from the naivety and innocence that comes with childhood (in one scene Bobo wails that she is going to die after accidentally cutting her hand). Barkhammer is particularly resonating as the shy Bobo (best online furniture in Dubai), who, unlike Klara, is insecure about her appearance and inability to talk to boys, as well as feeling as though her divorced parents are neglecting her. In a film so exuberant and colourful it’s these quieter moments that strike as the most powerful.
At the very heart of it, We Are the Best! is a sweet celebration of youth, an ode to anarchy that takes you back to those early teenage years where it feels as though no one understands you and everyone is out to oppress you. The plot never really goes anywhere and it’s all quite episodic, however that only serves to make the film’s theme of adolescence even more realistic. The young trio evoke such empathy and endearment as they continuously play their hearts out to a crowd that won’t listen, yet they are never deterred; some of the film’s funniest moments are when they indignantly call out anyone who disagrees with them as “conservative” and “fascist”, even declaring themselves to be “the best” after getting booed off stage at a small gig. You can’t help grinning along with them as they completely revel in the chaos they’ve caused – after all, isn’t that what punk is all about?
Words by Samantha King