Popular Music (2004)

One of my all time favorites.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Walking into this movie just more or less accidentally, I went out 105 minutes later with another candidate to my "all times' best list". Formerly employed in movie-jobs myself, I can only say that this is a masterpiece. May be the critics about incoherent use of local dialects is right - I saw it translated anyway. But, if this is a misfit, I must say, there are hardly other minor misfits. The movie is not boring for a second, and the tough scenes are not voyeuristic like usual, but describing the characters and the environment - yes, in a tough way. Highly to be recommended to everyone who was not raised in an accomodance of McD' and Cadillacs. Very close to live, and wonderfully set into scene. Pure live, the hard way, yes, but full of real love. A must for cineastics.

"Populärmusik från Vittula" is a lovingly made and beautifully staged movie, brimful with really exciting, amusing, disturbing, and most of all NEW and interesting faces, folks and scenes.Well worth seeing, but i strongly recommend to read the book before watching the film, because the book's author Mikael Niemi puts major emphasis on loving observation - his unique strength - and all time-line-bound events are connected and interwoven by the narrators's humorous, skillful reflections. While the entire novel lives on this unique subjective density, the screenplay fails to regenerate this surreal yet all-too-real atmosphere, and spawns a scrumptious roundabout of kaleidoscopic, more or less detached incidents. Partially, it even felt like someone's trying to affirm or authenticate the author's contemplations. A somewhat oblique effort, fit to entertain but also irritate the unprepared beholder.Compared to what is called mainstream these days, "Populärmusik från Vittula" is a step in the proper direction. OK, it rides the book's wave of success, but the heck, it was simply about time for a movie like that!

As a movie this was pretty much the same as the book: good, but not instant classic. Though I am sure there are lots of people who will disagree with me on the book part.For technical point of view there is nothing wrong with the flick: acting is good, directing is good, the whole packet works. It even has some pretty funny scenes in it.My main problem was with the plot itself: this was hardly anything new under the sun. Just another nostalgic driven view of someones childhood and coming of age.I could have given better score, but my personal favourite scene was left out. I know it wouldn't have much, actually any general plot influence, but I just would have wanted to see it in.Nothing more to say, see it if you like the genre.

Another Swedish movie about people in the North, regarded as monkeys in a zoo. This kind of "exoticism" is very cheap indeed. You are laughing about the drinking habits, disgusted about the children being beat up, laughing about the 60s, disgusted about small town prejudice and so on. It's too easy.If you grew up in this days, you don't recognize the era. This is of course about another far away part of Sweden, but the mood of the film is too different from how it was. It's under-acted and over-acted and the guys who are performing the two young boys are only average in talent.You can see this or avoid it. I would recommend the later alternative.