Why ABBA is the most cinematic band ever

As ABBA’s comeback album Voyage drops, here’s a brief history of the band’s cinematic highpoints, from ABBA: The Movie to Bergman Island, via Paul Verhoeven and Spike Lee

5November 2021

In Mia Hansen-Løve’s Bergman Island, Amy (Mia Wasikowska) cannot resist the lure of ABBA. From the smoking area, Amy overhears “The Winner Takes It All”, then drags Joseph (Anders Danielsen Lie), the object of her affection, to the dance floor for a singalong. But the 1980 ballad, often deemed the Swedish pop group’s defining single, can’t be executed alone. The chorus, its melodies overlapping, requires at least two performers – it’s where, in the studio, Anni-Frid Lyngstad joins Agnetha Fältskog on vocals. After bouncing up and down to the verse, eyes closed, hands on heart, Amy mimes the “Someone way down here/Loses someone dear” line and realises that Joseph has abandoned her. Cue the next lyric in the background as Amy runs out: “But tell me does she kiss/Like I used to kiss you?”

In short, ABBA are an inherently cinematic band. They sing of love, heartbreak, and emotions that befit third-act climaxes. Their instrumentations are timeless, their melodies bypass language barriers; an ABBA needle-drop, as in Bergman Island, can be a plot point in itself. The group’s lyrics not only refer to their two in-band marital breakups and existential crises (“All I do is eat and sleep and sing/Wishing every show was the last show”), they possess their own mystery and narratives. For instance, on their 1977 tour, they performed a 25-minute plot-driven musical on stage called The Girl with the Golden Hair, during which the third song was “Thank You for the Music” (hence the “I am so lucky/I am the girl with golden hair” lyric).

It’s telling that ABBA’s comeback album, Voyage, their first since 1981’s The Visitors, is really to promote a VR concert in which their “Abbatars” – digitally de-aged projections of the foursome – do their own version of Scorsese’s The Irishman. Before their breakup, ABBA had only done around 100 live shows, preferring to engage with fans through music videos and short films. Starting with their breakthrough singles, “Ring Ring” and Waterloo”, both videos directed by Lasse Hallström, ABBA deliberated over their music’s visual component before it was fashionable to do so – and, speaking of Bergman, is the “Knowing Me Knowing You” video meant to be a tribute to Persona?

While ABBA’s relationship with movies will forever be, let’s face it, tainted by Mamma Mia! and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again – both perversely watchable, like shovelling McDonald’s into your mouth and trying not to throw up in shame – the band’s music has graced so many memorable movies, it’s begging for its own film festival. If not at Fårö (aka Bergman Island), then in Viggsö (aka ABBA Island), where the group wrote and recorded most of their hits. Here’s a brief history of those cinematic highpoints, charting the path from ABBA: The Movie to Bergman Island via Paul Verhoeven and Spike Lee.

Bergman Island is out now in the US, and will be released theatrically by MUBI in the UK in 2022. ABBA’s Voyage is out now

01 / 10

ABBA: The Movie, Lasse Hallström (1977)

Released in cinemas just after “The Name of the Game” topped the charts, ABBA: The Movie blends live concert footage with the band gamely participating in silly skits. Unlike, say, Radiohead’s Meeting People Is Easy, Hallström’s tour mockumentary presents hotel junkets as fun, social events. A journalist chases the band around Australia, trying to snag an interview, while their chat-and-mouse routine is punctuated by clips of ABBA belting out the hits on stage. However, like in the songs, darkness lurks beneath the shiny exterior; jetting around the world is evidently exhausting, as is being a woman in the public eye, with a reporter asking Fältskog if she has “the sexiest bottom in Europe”. Tellingly, for their 2021 comeback, Fältskog and Lyngstad have refused to do press, and the pre-recorded VR concert allows for zero travel.

The songs: all of them!

02 / 10

Spetters, Paul Verhoeven (1980)

In Verhoeven’s Dutch-language version of Saturday Night Fever, “Chiquitita” plays on the radio during an explicit sex scene to heighten the mood. The guy gets on top of the woman, she tells him where to stick his Super Trouper, and he shoots his load too quickly – the lovemaking is over before the chorus kicks in. As always, Verhoeven is ahead of the game, capturing the band’s disco energy before their critical reassessment, and predicting that ABBA’s music will soundtrack many a premature ejaculation for decades to come.

The songs: “Chiquitita”

03 / 10

Montenegro, Dušan Makavejev (1981)

Similarly to Verhoeven’s appreciation of ABBA as free-love, party music, Montenegro drops in “Why Did It Have to Be Me?” during a montage of an elderly man auditioning younger, potential wives. Makavejev, a Serbian provocateur whose previous movies were banned in several countries, disguises the sleaziness of the storyline with ABBA’s seemingly wholesome, family-friendly sheen. When the auditioning women dance to ABBA, it makes sense: a successful relationship is discovering someone who will pretend to love ABBA as much as you do.

The songs: “Why Did It Have to Be Me?”

04 / 10

Muriel’s Wedding, PJ Hogan (1994)

Ridley Scott, who included “Waterloo” in The Martian, called Muriel’s Wedding the greatest film of all time. While that’s a bit extreme, Hogan’s comedy boasts an all-time line from Toni Colette’s Muriel: “My life is as good as an ABBA song. My life is as good as ‘Dancing Queen’.” Until then, Muriel’s depression is visualised by ABBA posters and ABBA-inspired outfits – until she bonds with a new BFF over “Waterloo”. In the triumphant closing scene, Muriel and Rhonda run off to “Dancing Queen”, a song that somehow soundtracks both the darkest and brightest moments in their life.

The song: “Dancing Queen”

05 / 10

The Adventures of Priscilla, Stephan Elliott (1994)

There’s so much adoration for ABBA in Priscilla, it leads to a small request: “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – no more fucking ABBA!” Indicating ABBA’s growing popularity with the LGBTQ+ community, the cult Australian road movie follows drag queens who perform, amongst other songs, “Mamma Mia” on stage. “It was the gay community who underpinned the comeback,” Björn Ulvaeus told Gay Times. For similar reasons, “Dancing Queen” was used in I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry – though not as sensitively, of course.

The song: “Mamma Mia”

06 / 10

Summer of Sam, Spike Lee (1999)

Set in the summer of 1977, when the Son of Sam killer was on the loose, Lee’s drama inserts “Dancing Queen” and “Fernando” to establish the period setting, while also ironically juxtaposing the upbeat melodies with the threat of being a killer’s next victim. Here, Mira Sorvino and John Leguizamo furiously argue for three-and-a-half solid minutes: she yells that he’s a “perverted sick fuck”, she kicks him out of the car, and then she speeds off on her own, all while “Dancing Queen” blasts on the stereo in full. When ABBA plays, it’s like texting when drunk – your emotions are exaggerated.

The song: “Dancing Queen”

07 / 10

Dick, Andrew Fleming (1999)

If you’re short on time, you can fast-forward to the end of Fleming’s Watergate satire in which Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams rollerskate around the Oval Office, under a disco ball, to “Dancing Queen”. Because why not? But pause around two minutes in when, mystifyingly, it switches to Sixpence None the Richer’s cover of the same song.

The song: “Dancing Queen”

08 / 10

Together, Lukas Moodysson (2000)

Like “Dancing Queen” in Muriel’s Wedding, “SOS appears twice in Moodysson’s comedy-drama, symbolising the emotional highs and lows of its key characters. Four minutes in, a mother leaves her abusive husband, he collapses on the floor, and their two children try not to cry – then “SOS”, an apt song about heartbreak, kicks in. For the supposedly happy ending, “SOS” reappears, undermining the idyllic image of a family playing football in the snow. If there’s any doubt, Moodysson told Sight & Sound, “For me, it’s a really serious, sad song about breaking up.”

The song: “SOS”

09 / 10

And Then We Danced, Levin Akin (2019)

Akin’s tender romance about a gay, Georgian dancer earned acclaim at Cannes for two musical sequences in particular – one a sexy, seductive dance between two men to Robyn’s “Honey”, the other a party scene in which a lively ensemble leap around to “Take a Chance on Me”. The song is significant, not just because Benny Andersson’s son produced the film, but due to how ABBA and their harmonies encapsulate a better world. “ABBA is really popular in Georgia with young kids and older generations,” Levan Gelbakhiani told Dazed last year. “They know ABBA. It’s not just a random song – it has meaning for society, and shows the union between these two groups.”

The song: “Take a Chance On Me”

10 / 10

Bergman Island, Mia Hansen-Løve (2021)

When ABBA appears in Bergman Island, it’s in a film-within-the-film. Wasikowska’s character, Amy, is a fictional creation of Chris’s (Vicky Krieps), and thus her emotions are manipulated by an external force. Likewise, Agnetha Fältskog sings the poignant, breakup-related verses of “The Winner Takes It All”, yet the lyrics are penned by Björn Ulvaeus, whom she divorced the month the single was released. For much of Bergman Island, Hansen-Løve’s screenplay treats Bergman and his reputation among cinephiles with scepticism; Amy’s true emotional connection, ultimately, isn’t with Bergman, it’s with a few blissful, melancholic minutes of “The Winner Takes It All”. In the end, Bergman Island is a rich, layered celebration of one of the great Swedish artistic icons – just not the one in the title.

The song: “The Winner Takes It All”

00 / 10