The Wolf Wilder

Harold is a death-obsessed rich kid who stages fake suicides to shock his mother. At funerals he meets Maude, a free-spirited woman nearly eighty who steals cars and replants trees. Their friendship, and then something more, turns a black comedy into a love story about being alive.

Why it’s here: The film laughs at the family, the church, the army and the psychiatrist, and takes the side of a boy who wants to feel something. What's punk is Maude, who refuses every authority and has the best lines in the film. What's pedagogical is the question it asks: what does it mean to live on purpose? Pairs with LAUGH & RESIST shelf books like Brain Droppings and Revolution for the Hell of It. Note: the romance between a teenager and a woman nearly eighty is played for comedy and puzzles some viewers, and some of Harold's fake deaths are dark.

Stockholm, 1982. Bobo and Klara are thirteen, have short haircuts, and decide that punk is the answer to everything, even though nobody believes punk is alive. They have no instruments and no talent, so they start a band anyway, and recruit a shy Christian girl, Hedvig, who can actually play guitar. Moodysson adapted it from his wife Coco Moodysson's graphic novel, based on her own teenage years. Warm, funny and fast.

Why it’s here: It's a film about starting a band because you have something to say and no skill. What's punk is its whole philosophy: do it badly, do it loud, do it now. What's pedagogical is how it shows teenagers working out friendship, faith and who they are in public. Companion to The First Rule of Punk and Punk Farm in the catalog. Note: rated R in the US for language and brief teen themes (drinking, a crush); fine for 12+ with a parent. Swedish with subtitles; Hedvig's Christianity is treated fairly.