On nous appelle les mods

I was 14 when this movie premiered, in the tumultuous year of 1968. It immediately impressed me as a very accurate portrayal of teens alienated by society's materialism, frustrated by the prospect of one day having to conform.

Stefan Jarl, a director of great integrity, follows two teens, Kenta and Stoffe, through their everyday life, which is Bohemian indeed. Nothing much happening, not much of a plot, more like a documentary - I guess that to a large extent it is. Still, it is fascinating. Jarl manages to capture their sentiments, their world view, and how it provokes society.

Although the 60's are long gone, my guess is that teens of any decade can relate to this movie. Those who have left their teen years far behind, should use this movie as a revisit. We should never dismiss the thoughts and feelings we had when young, or the world will quickly become a ruin.

Jarl made a follow-up movie, A Decent Life, eleven years later, returning to Kenta and Stoffe, and what their lives had become. Again in 1993, in The Social Contract.

Being young and revolt towards parents and society as in "They call us misfits" reminds us that there is no difference between youth then and youth now. Its messed up to be in the borderline between childhood and grownup adult. There is a thin line between documentary and fiction in this film but Stefan Jarl has captured the feeling more than actual events i guess. In the movie we meet actual kids who already has given up on life. Kids who know they are going to be alcoholics and drug users, they don't care. Hm.. who to blame? This film was first stopped from distribution because of a sex scene in the movie but was later released without surgery because Olof Palme (working for the Swedish socialist party until he was murdered in 1986) thought the film was important.

This first film in the "Dom kallar oss mods"-trilogy (They call us misfits") is truly great and less depressing than the two following films, which are also great but much more serious and sad. This is because Kenta (Kennet Gustavsson) and Stoffe (Gustav Svensson) are still young and naive, only 18 years old, and have not yet become alcoholics and drug addicts. Stefan Jarl has made a true documentary classic, capturing the zeitgeist of the 60's in Sweden while following these two exceptionally well spoken social misfits and their friends in their lives. You cannot help but liking Kenta and Stoffe,outspoken and friendly, they never really had a chance... Dom kallar oss mods is a unique, warm, generous and open-hearted movie. Don't miss it for the world. Lots of fun too.

Even though I'm born in the eighties and was a teenager in the late nineties and early twenty-first century I can relate to this movie. Why? Because youth is still youth. Every decade has it's rebellion. In every decade there are kids who live like the kids in this movie. The fifties had the rockers, the sixties the mods and hippies, the seventies punk, the eighties metal and goth, nineties grunge and now we have the emos. There will always be youth rebellion.

And there will always be drugs, alcohol and those who fall for the fast living and become prisoners of their addiction.

What strikes me the most about this movie is the pessimism of the young people. They come from broken homes full of abuse. Physical abuse and substance abuse. And they don't expect to do any better themselves. They live for the day not thinking too much about the future. They party and do drugs to not have to think about what their lives are really like. They are true escapists but in the end reality catches up with them as we see in the sequels.

This is a sad movie showing the despair of lost young people hiding behind happy facades of constant partying. Even though it was made forty years ago it's still a very important documentary. I know people like this. Change the scenery to that of Stockholm today and the clothes to clothes of today and this movie could have been shot in 2008.

The question I ask myself after watching this movie is how can we make things right for people like this? I don't know and apparently people back then didn't know either because things are still the same.

I was born in 1979 and didn't see the documentary the first time around. The thoughts and ideas of these teenagers are very much the same as of teenagers of today, and it is striking how little has changed. (Reluctance to becoming a "Svensson" :-) among other things) I can't believe how much Stefan Jarl have gotten them to open up in front of the camera. They talk about family situations, their dreams and hopes (or lack thereof). Apparently he lived with them for so long that they didn't mind the cameras anymore. I would recommend this movie to anyone. It is a fascinating display of a decadent lifestyle and the hairstyles are just unbelievable.