Monday, June 02, 2014

jun 2/4/5 | we are the best! | lukas moodysson

Three chances to see this one, featured in the May issue of Sight & Sound. "A pair of disgruntled punks - shy 13-year-old Bobo and outspoken 12-year-old Klara - have a mission, even if they have slightly missed the boat on punk's glory days: they will form a band. It doesn't matter that they can't play a note because they have a plan: to press-gang their serenely friendless Christian classmate Hedvig - who can actually play the guitar - into joining their group."


We Are The Best! 
Vancouver International Film Centre (VanCity)
Mon Jun 2 06:30
Wed Jun 4 06:30
Thu Jun 5 06:30

SIGHT & SOUND:
In We Are The Best!, music is treated as an essential form of self-expression but is also fertiel ground for discussing a variety of issues, including spirituality. Moodysson is a committed Christian and includes a number of scenes - alternately hilarious and touching - in which the girls wrestle with issues of faith. Young Klara has a near-messianic commitment to atheism, and declares of Hedvig: "We'll influence her away from God... That's what punk's all about - influencing other people." For an ostensibly light film, it's weighty stuff.

VIFC:
Lukas Moodysson (Together; Show Me Love) adapts his wife Coco’s graphic novel about three young misfits growing up in early ’80s Stockholm. Pixieish, mohawk-sporting Klara (Mira Grosin) and her best friend Bobo (Mira Barkhammar) are 13-year-old rebels looking for a cause. Despite having no instruments-or discernible musical talent-the two put all their energy into forming an all-girl punk band, recruiting their shy, classical guitar-playing schoolmate Hedvig (Liv LeMoyne) as the third wheel. With tender affection for his young characters and the period in which his film is set, Moodysson paints an ebullient and sharply observant portrait of DIY spirit and growing up different.

"A joyous, heart-swelling tale of youthful rebellion." Manohla Dargis, New York Times

"A joyous time capsule. Captures the DIY empowerment of punk rock and the bond of female friendships in one blissful swoop. For those of us who’ve been hoping that Lukas Moodysson would return to the tender touch of early movies like Show Me Love and Together, the wait is over." David Fear, The Village Voice

"A gloriously funny coming-of-age comedy – although age itself is squeezed almost entirely into the margins, crowded out by the film’s raucous, window-rattling love of being young." Robbie Colin, Daily Telegraph