7.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Inspired by DIY culture and infused with a spirit of rebellion, three Swedish girls decide to form a punk band in the 1980s, even though they possess no musical instruments and are told the genre is dead.
Starring: Mira Barkhammar, Mira Grosin, Liv LeMoyne, Johan Liljemark, Mattias WibergForeign | 100% |
Drama | 59% |
Coming of age | 5% |
Music | 2% |
Comic book | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Swedish: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo
English, English SDH, French, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
BD-Live
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
We Are the Best! is the first film by Swedish writer/director Lukas Moodysson since his ambitious 2009 English-language debut, Mammoth, which had a mixed reception at home and was little seen in the United States. Moodysson has said that, after making Mammoth, he was "tired both of film and myself as a director and sought out other avenues". Having begun his creative life as a poet, he turned to novel writing, completing two books. He taught film classes, played chess and (as it now seems) waited for something to reawaken his cinematic interest. That something arrived in the form of a graphic novel by Moodysson's wife, Coco, entitled Never Goodnight, which was loosely based on her experiences as a rebellious teenager in the 1980s. Moodysson, whose work has been notable for its young female protagonists (memorably in his tender debut, Show Me Love, and his searing indictment of the sex trade, Lilya 4-ever), freely adapted his wife's story into a lively and energetic tale that was immediately hailed as a return to the upbeat tone that had first galvanized audiences in his early features. Entitled We Are the Best!, the film is propelled by the boundless energy of three remarkable young performers whose chemistry and exuberance confirm the oft-repeated adage that good casting is a director's most important job. We Are the Best! is set in the early Eighties, which means that a lot of work went into recreating the period and erasing all traces of a later era dominated by cell phones, the internet and musical instruments powered by digital technology, but Moodysson does the work invisibly, so that his camera seems to be randomly catching these young characters experiencing life as it happens. In Moodysson's tale, kids don't "come of age". They just live from moment to moment.
I wanted to make a film showing that life - despite all evidence to the contrary - is worth living. . . . It's wonderful to have a friend, wonderful to play an instrument without knowing how, wonderful to set fire to an old statue, wonderful to have the most annoying parents in the world, wonderful to throw up on someone's records, wonderful to be booed and mocked, wonderful to be the best.
Information about the shooting format of We Are the Best! was not available, but the credits indicate that the film was digitally edited and "graded", and its listing in the SFI Database indicates that it was released via DCP, all of which suggests that Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was derived directly from digital files (as is the case with almost every contemporary feature film). The cinematographer was Moodysson's frequent collaborator, Ulf Brantås, who, according to Moodysson, shares his love of improvisation. If it weren't for the carefully chosen period wardrobe and production design, We Are the Best! might almost be mistaken for a documentary, because the camerawork is largely handheld (though not "shakycam"), and the frame is never subject to the kind of stylized color wash that is typical of so many feature films today. Rarely, though, does documentary filmmaking achieve the kind of consistent focus and precise coordination of objects and wardrobe that one finds in We Are the Best! The acting and camera moves may have been improvised, but Moodysson has confirmed in interviews that the costumes and sets were carefully planned. ("I'm always interested in clothes and objects", he has said. "I believe that exterior reality reflects inner reality, that objects have souls.") The Blu-ray image provides the sharpness and detail necessary to appreciate the care with which Moodysson has created the world of Bobo, Klara and Hedvig, but the image also has a natural texture and lack of harshness that suits the pre-digital period. The color palette, which favors reds and blues, is rich but not oversaturated, so that the film's world is visually stimulating but not artificial or obviously stylized. With no extras, the 103-minute films fits on a BD-25 with an average bitrate of just under 23 Mbps. While the average isn't impressive, especially by Magnolia's usual standards, the bandwidth has been sufficiently allocated between quiet scenes and those with tumultuous activity to avoid any compression issues.
We Are the Best!'s original Swedish 5.1 soundtrack is presented in lossless DTS-HD MA, with optional English subtitles. Separate English SDH subtitles are also available. Although the film is nominally about a band, it has a notably barren soundtrack. There isn't even an independent score. The only music is "source music" from stereos, walkmans or various performances. Consistent with the film's documentary aesthetic, the sound mix is primarily front-oriented to focus on the dialogue between and among the characters, with stereo separation used to convey off-screen presence of elements like the party that Klara's brother gives (from which the girls steal drinks) or the birthday party for Bobo's mother (from which Bobo flees to call Klara and commiserate). I can't opine on the clarity of the Swedish dialogue, but even if the three young actresses don't always enunciate perfectly, their faces and mannerisms are so expressive that it hardly matters
Although Magnolia's original press release for We Are the Best! listed featurettes about the making of the film and the music, as well as a photo gallery and trailer, the disc has no extras other than the following, which are standard on Magnolia Blu-rays:
Moodysson has said that he wanted to return to the tone that he struck in Show Me Love and his popular second feature, Together. He has certainly achieved that goal with We Are the Best!, but in a completely new and original way. In an interview, his three young stars described how he would let them improvise freely, listening quietly and intently for take after take, moving on only after he had heard what he wanted. The results have a freshness and authenticity that transcends even the language barrier, because the nuances of communication between these characters are non-verbal. According to Moodysson, his next film will be a romantic comedy. If anyone can figure out how to revive that genre, he's the one to do it. Even without features, highly recommended.
Tillsammans
2000
2004
2006
Fucking Åmål
1998
2002
2009
Adieu au langage
2014
2015
Pionér
2013
Mitt liv som hund
1985
Yin shi nan nu / 飲食男女
1994
După dealuri
2012
Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Arrow Academy
1988
Prova d'orchestra
1978
Bande de filles
2014
La grande bellezza
2013
En man som heter Ove
2015
2009
Lásky jedné plavovlásky / A Blonde in Love
1965
وجدة
2012