"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!

** HERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS **Matti reminisces about his youth with best friend Niila. In the village of Pajala in the far north of Sweden they grew up and experienced their personal adventures. Now, to me this movie is a long biopic of Matti's youth, full of stereotypes (how accurate they may be, I have no way to tell), with some funny episodes now and then. It may be more funny or interesting for someone who actually grew up there and then (or in some similar place), but for me, not having done that, it just wasn't. The general plot and story was very loosely connected and some scenes or subplots actually seemed unnecessary, not contributing in any other way than extending the movie a few minutes. However, good performances from the actors and in some sense an interesting view. However, for entertainment... not that good.5/10

This is the kind of movies we need in these days. Rock N Roll movies, now when the Hip Hop gets too much place.The Movie is about two boys which grows up in Northern Sweden. Its the sixties and Sweden is on a era of new inventions. New roads and buildings where builted. And now Sweden need more people who can work on these projects. And we took people from Finland.Thease two boys, one Swedish and one finish, discover the new music, Rock N Roll. And when they got 15, they started a Rock n Roll band, which was impossible before, because the people in northern Sweden is very conservative and doesn't like to buy something which they haven't used before. But thanks to their new music teacher, which comes from souther Sweden, helped them.See this Movie!

This film is about the relationship between two boys growing up together in a small town in the north of Sweden. Their nickname for the town is "Vittula" (roughly translated: The P*ssy fields).The movie contains violence, sex, nudity and rough language without having any of those ingredients taking away focus from the actual story. In my opinion, it's also rare for a movie to successfully combine comedy and drama. Here the two parts are well balanced and will give you both laughter and sadness.However, the movie have two weak spots.1. Since I haven't read the book, I found myself filling in blanks in the story. It isn't always clear what event follows another. Sometimes it's almost like a highlight reel of events taking place in no specific order. Maybe this is how the director intended it to be or maybe how the book is written, but this was kind of annoying for me.2. Some actors change their accent from scene to scene, which of course take away a lot of credibility from their character. If an actor can't fake a typical northern accent of Swedish for the full lenght of the movie, it would be better if they just stick with their natural accent.Most people I have spoken to seems to have enjoyed this movie in one way or another, maybe because the story is set so close to home and feels somewhat familiar. (I hope that this movie will be appreciated by people in Finland and in the southern parts of Sweden as well.)Cast and crew worth to mention are: Director Reza Bagher for taking the initiative to start this project which turned out to be a nice movie (even though some of the scenes don't fit especially well into the storyline, as I mentioned before). Actors Jarmo Mäkinen, Björn Kjellman and Lennart Jähkel for great acting performances.I rate this movie 6/10.