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Whoever has seen any of Aki Kaurismäki's films might agree that they are all but mainstream. Nevertheless, the story itself doesn't have to be too complicated. In this case, a man completely loses his past in a shockingly violent way, and he rediscovers life again in an environment of bums who sleep in containers. The good thing I found about this movie was: No romanticism of misery, no enlightment of the tortured hero, no sob-stuff love story, no superflous aloof intellectualism at all. At least not in an obtrusive or overly serious way. But in a way that it sometimes shocked me , sometimes made me laugh, sometimes grin. I was never bored. And as I made it to Finland for the first time in my life a few weeks after seeing this movie - I found everything to be amazingly authentic.

A remarkable film that definitely moves into my shrine of the best 50!

Whoever has seen any of Aki Kaurismäki's films might agree that they are all but mainstream. Nevertheless, the story itself doesn't have to be too complicated. In this case, a man completely loses his past in a shockingly violent way, and he rediscovers life again in an environment of bums who sleep in containers. The good thing I found about this movie was: No romanticism of misery, no enlightenment of the tortured hero, no sob-stuff love story, no superfluous, aloof intellectualism at all. At least not in an obtrusive or overly serious way. But in a way that it sometimes shocked me , sometimes made me laugh, sometimes grin. I was never bored. And as I made it to Finland for the first time in my life a few weeks after seeing this movie - I found everything to be amazingly authentic.

A remarkable film that definitely moves into my shrine of the best 50!

I saw the movie right away at the movies when it came out first. The story seemed very appealing, I knew the book had been a smash although I never read it. What I was expecting was a story of a thirtysomething who had not quite found his place in life and who is escaping into his music whenever possible. Some person that is somewhat awkward, but not too geeky. Actually, someone like me. When I saw it for the first time I thought: well that's okay but not too great. But I expected it to be better than my perception had been so I rented it from the local video store. But again: The music wasn't that great and it didn't seem to be very much in the middle of the film like one would expect. The ex-girlfriends-stories were kinda flat. It was not pointed out by the story why he was left by Laura, and it wasn't even clear why she came back (maybe because Tim Robbins was such a lame esoteric). I couldn't even laugh about most of the apparent jokes. The movie seemed short and empty to me. See, I didn't read the book, but I expect it to be a whole lot richer.

Hi Fidelity is nice but that's it.