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| Two boys in various outdoor situations make up this unclear poster for Reza Bagher's Popular Music |
Two boys in a small corner of Sweden near the Finnish border become friends and later start a rock band in their homestead, which is eating into them.
Popular Music is written by Erik Norberg (Iskungen (2001, short)) and co-writer/director Reza Bagher (Vingar av Glas (2000)), adapting the same-titled 2000 novel by Mikael Niemi (Astrotruckers/Svålhålet (2004)). The original Swedish title translates to 'popular music from Vittula'.
It is a high-energy coming-of-age drama (think C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)) with many funny scenes (the asphalt scene and the church scene are especially memorable.) And four sweet lads at the front, playing Matti and Niila at ages 7 and 15, respectively.
But the narrative is also a jumbled affair, devil-may-care and dynamic, which at times almost seems to forget the boys in order to relate something amusing about fringe area Swedes and Finlanders. We suddenly leave Matti and Niila as boys to find them again almost ten years later with no explanation or clear understanding of who is who. (They have changed an incredible lot.)
There is plenty of fun in Popular Music, but the direction is unclear. It becomes very dark and dramatic in periods after excessive abandon, which also demands more of the average viewer than can be expected.
Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here, uploaded by the actor in the clip who gets hit by a bus in the clip, without it being planned, and who calls director Bagher a 'demon' in the caption, claiming that extreme working hours and stress led to accidents and lax safety during production
Cost: Reportedly 2.224 mil. €, approximately 2.37 mil. $
Box office: Uncertain - but at least 1.52 mil. $
= Uncertain; projected huge flop (projected return of 0.64 times its cost)
[Popular Music premiered 19 September (Sweden) and runs 105 minutes. Shooting took place from August - October 2003 in Sweden. The film has two markets listed on its Box Office Mojo: Finland (932k $) and Norway with 416k $. Sweden is missing, and so is Denmark, where 11k bought admission (approximately 123k $). Iranian-born Bagher never returned as a filmmaker after the film's release. 5.5k IMDb members have given Popular Music a 6.5/10 average rating.]
What do you think of Popular Music?
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