After spending the last few years living up to his surname by making films about sex trafficking (2002's especially brutal Lilya 4-ever) and a film about a pornographer that was supposed to be intentionally off-putting, featuring stuff like close-ups of vaginal reconstruction surgery (A Hole In My Heart from 2004), it was about time Lukas Moodysson did something a little more upbeat. The Swedish director's most recent work, We Are The Best!, is no less political, uncompromising or engaging as the rest of his filmography. It's just a little easier to watch more than once, and to leave the cinema not with a whole where your soul used to be, but genuinely rejuvenated. Adapted from the graphic novel by his wife Coco Moodysson, We Are The Best! chronicles the formation and teenage trials and tribulations of an all-girl punk band in eighties Stockholm. The central trio of tweens are absolutely fantastic, hilarious and sympathetic in equal measure as they muddle through the typical dramas of adolescence coupled with the outsider viewpoint of the punk, and the film has a ragged DIY, rallying call feel to it as the girls fight for their right to play music very poorly, but with passion. Weirdly for Moodysson, there's something heart warming about We Are The Best! But never hokey, or cheesy, and always with the ringing of feedback in your ears.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
