Rijndri Load of rubbish!!

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

framptonhollis Various visuals in "Shadows in Paradise" manage to speak more than thousands of words. In the spirit of "L'Atalante" and "Marty", "Shadows in Paradise" is a poignant love story that chronicles two likable characters' miraculous, romantic, and conflict-infested relationship. It combines the hilarious with the melancholic in a way that director Aki Kaurismäki had proved to master time and time again. His juggling of emotions is bathed in stark realism that lies within the film's colorful visuals. The lead characters are not played by glamorous Hollywood stars, these characters are not the stereotypical fools usually present in romantic comedies. They are real, but still quite interesting, human beings. In the spirit of writers like James Joyce and filmmakers such as Charles Burnett, Kaurismaki finds beauty in everyday moments and people. While there are moments of fierce conflict in this film that can, in no way, be called "mundane", a vast majority of what occurs in "Shadows in Paradise" is highly normal and borderline bland. However, through these slight details, Kaurismaki is able to explore the depths of the human experience, as well as the hidden beauty within the everyman. This sweet, gentle, and darkly comic love story will impress both romantics and film critics.

filmalamosa A great look at Helsinki you'll never see in any travel brochure. I went into this movie blind--and found it fun in removing me from the here and now. The tone is noirish and deadpan---the actors perfect for the roles. All of it was sort of believable in a humorous way which is key to this movie.The movie was made in 1986 almost 30 years ago so it involves some time travel as well.I recommend it is the sort of thing I like although I would not probably rush to watch it again...7---RECOMMEND

markwood272 Some random observations: 1. Kaurismaki's "paradise" is grimy city streets, garbage, landfills, jails, flophouses, shabby apartments. Two kinds of people inhabit this Eden: either the few, the snooty, the well off – or the subverbal, poorly educated quasi-lumpen stumbling about among the aforementioned sites. The settings, both exterior and interior, belong more to the England of "The L Shaped Room" or "Billy Liar" than to the Scandinavia of travel agency brochures.2. Kaurismaki delivers virtuoso satire founded upon the stereotypical shy, wordless Finn. But he offers more by pushing beyond stereotype to display a deep familiarity with the kind of people he shows on the screen. An American director similarly so in tune with his people might be Kevin Smith. A possible British counterpart? Maybe Ken Loach.3. "Shadows in Paradise" is also a testament to Kaurismaki's confidence in the cinematic medium itself, in its power to tell stories using sight and sound without principal reliance on the material of theater or literature – words. We are accustomed to the many films about how XX meets XY, where the characters express feelings, establish plot, indeed, do just about everything through words. Sometimes we even get entire orations, regardless of a film's "realistic" intent. Dialogue rules everything from the quippy screenplays of Nora Ephron or Preston Sturges to the tangly Gallic word-webs of Eric Rohmer. The similarities between Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair in "Marty" and Matti Pellonpaa and Kati Outinen in "Shadows in Paradise" end with "Marty's" theatrical, dialogue-soaked provenance. It would be hard to transfer this film of Kaurismaki to page or stage. The story would weaken and likely die in print or any exclusively verbal form.4. For his comedy Kaurismaki employs a delay-deadpan technique, something familiar to anyone who has seen the "punishment" sequences in Laurel and Hardy's "Tit for Tat' (1935) or who remembers the standup routines of Jackie Vernon in the 60's. Kaurismaki's comedies – and "Shadows in Paradise" is a good example – prove the technique still achieves the desired result: laughs. And like Jackie Vernon or Laurel and Hardy, Kaurismaki makes his words just another ingredient in the comedy. They are well chosen and sometimes hilarious but enjoy no special preference.5. The movie screened the other night on TCM with the host's caution that this is an unusual sort of romantic comedy – but why the caution? And why the need for any "category" in the first place? To call this a "romantic comedy" and then warn people about its "quirky" or "offbeat"nature does it a double disservice. The warning for possible category transgression either implies that the film is deficient for disregarding certain "rules", or cautions the audience that it will be disappointed, since the movie does things it probably won't accept. But comedy, like so many things in life generally, thrives on surprise. In "Shadows in Paradise", Kaurismaki presents modern, free, prosperous Finland as a bizarre and rather dismal place which he proceeds to mine for laughter and the occasional tear. Whatever a television host labels it, the movie manages to be funny, entertaining – and accessible.6. A Kaurismaki movie has a distinctive "feel", as strongly trademarked as the comedies of Lubitsch or Sennett.

MartinHafer Nikander is a garbage collector. He appears about 35-40 and lives alone. Ilona is a woman who keeps losing jobs. The two of them, inexplicably, start dating even though you never have an idea what motivates them or brings them together. And, once they are together, they soon part--and the Nikander sulks....I think. That's because when Nikander (and Ilona for that matter) is sad he looks and acts exactly like he does when he's happy or bored or asleep. Will these two very dull people find each other before the film ends? Will anyone care?Imagine you took the film "Marty" or "Napoleon Dynamite" and sucked every last bit of energy out of them--then you'd have "Shadows in Paradise". "Shadows in Paradise" is a completely joyless film about two lonely people, who between the two of them, don't even have half a personality. As a result, they just seem to exist--and the viewer is stuck. Stuck because you cannot really care about them and stuck because the film seems to go on and on forever--even though it's only 72 minutes long. Why would the filmmakers choose to make such a film? It lacks heart...it lacks soul. Why?! Yet, oddly, this film is part of a set from the high-brow Criterion Collection.By the way, IMDb says this is a comedy and a romance. I saw no indication of either as I watched the film. Now had they said it was a zombie film, that I could have believed.