Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

2010 anti-Christmas movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: During a mysterious archaeological dig on a mountain in Finland, a nearby reindeer hunter accidentally captures an old man who he decides must be Santa Claus. Soon after, the children of the village start going missing.

This is not just my new go-to Christmas movie. It's also going to be my go-to movie when I want to see a bunch of naked old men. I'm sure this movie breaks some kind of record for most old man junk in a Christmas movie. This is a cool little story, very quiet and subdued until an action-packed and explosion-filled denouement. The humor is darkly Scandinavian, dry but warm. Scenes are funny because you're just not sure what else they're supposed to be. For example, there's one beautiful shot in a greenish reindeer-butcherin' room where some men sit and eat gingerbread cookies while Santa is tied up and suspended from the ceiling by a chain. Like a lot of Scandinavian movie makers (I'm going to just keep writing that like I know what I'm talking about), director Jalmari Helander (this is his only feature-length movie, by the way) takes his time getting from point to point, allowing the viewer to soak in all the character and setting details. And there are a lot of setting details to soak in. This is very well filmed; they take advantage of the mountainous background and rural settings. This is far from festive and just about perfect for people like me who don't really care all that much for the holiday season. My only hope is that I didn't give too much away with anything I wrote here.

Le Havre

2011 Aki Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A poor shoeshiner with a sick wife helps an African immigrant.

Aki Kaurismaki makes movies about human beings for other human beings. When I watch these things, there are emotions that he deals with in ways that I can't quite pinpoint, but I don't think there's another director alive who handles his characters this delicately and gives his audience the chance to appreciate the insignificant gaps in their stories. Kaurismaki's movies have space, and I think that's why I like them so much. This one's no different. His camera moves, but you'd still describe this as minimalistic. Andre Wilms is so good as the husband, and I really liked the character's dry wit. Yep, liked him a bunch. In fact, I can't remember a character I've rooted for this much. Kati Outinen, another Kaurismaki regular, is just as good in the smaller role of the wife. Their relationship is beautiful, somehow complex and simple at the same time. There's a wonderful scene where Wilms and Outinen give each other a glance at the mention of a memory, and we realize that there's all kinds of depth and history with these characters that we'll never be able to understand. It's those simple moments that make this so great--Minie and Little Bob illuminated during their reunion, the looks on the frozen faces of the refugees when their crate is open, the black kid jiving to a blues record, a look given in a taxi, Little Bob's Michael Jackson jacket. The kid's really good, too, probably because he's quiet. I believe this is the first Kaurismaki release that got any recognition in America, and since I'd call him one of my favorite directors, I was really looking forward to seeing it. Like his other movies, it really makes me want to just sit around and watch nothing but his movies.

Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses

1994 sequel

Rating: 13/20

Plot: It's five years after the Cowboys do America, and the titular worst band in the world have fallen on hard times in Mexico. Tequila has taken the lives of some of the bandmates and gotten the rest of them in trouble. A savior arrives, Vladimir the manager returning after abandoning them at the end of the last movie and "never being heard from again." He's renamed himself Moses and promises to help get the Cowboys back to their native land. Promised land, I guess. Before they depart for Europe, Vladimir steals the Statue of Liberty's nose for reasons that are never explained very well.

What better way to finish off a year of movies than with an Aki Kaurismaki movie? This isn't as solid as the first Leningrad Cowboy movie unfortunately, but it does have my favorite actor Matti Pellonpaa in it and a scattering of funny bits. The musical numbers are all pretty good, my favorite being the one sung by "Elijah," the guy who's chasing them around for most of the movie trying to steal back the nose. That song ("Kili Watch") is just pure bliss. There's a lot of Biblical satire here, some which doesn't work at all. Pellonpaa's quoting of the Bible ("You shall not eat any disgusting thing. Also, you should not cook a kid in his mother's milk." [Wheezy laugh]) is great. The burning bush or water-from-the-rock scenes are a little too silly and random. This is filled with enough absurd comedy to make it worthwhile for fans of the first movie or for Aki Kaurismaki in general, but it's not exactly a great movie.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America Redux!

1989 Aki Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 16/20 (Only gave it a 13/20 last time I wrote about it on this blog--I'm embarrassed about that.)

Plot: The titular worst band in the world go America after being told that Americans will buy anything. They travel the country, trying to earn a buck by playing gigs in trashy bars that their unscrupulous manager has set up for them. Their ultimate destination is Mexico where they've been hired to play a wedding.

This movie is already on the blog, but I just don't have access to Aki Kaurismaki's movies and needed to see one. Plus, Criterion (God bless 'em) just released a box set with this and two others (stay tuned!), and I didn't want to watch the sequel without giving this one another spin. When I first checked this out, I wasn't familiar with Kaurismaki and probably just didn't get it. It's a brilliant comedy though a little more slapsticky and goofy than his other movies on this blog. The camera also moves a lot more. It's moving right off that bat actually in a sweeping shot that ends with the frozen Cowboy you see on the poster up there. There are a lot of sight gags in this one, some hilarious and some that just aren't. Seeing the dog's hair? Hilarious. The picture of their ancestor--Abe Lincoln with the Cowboy's hair style? Not so much. But actually, that little gag is so bad that's actually good. A tire popping gag, a scene with beer cans, a picture of a tractor. These kinds of shenanigans aren't going to appeal to everybody, but seven-year-olds who don't mind subtitles will think it's all pretty funny.

Here are four scenes that I really love, at least two of them almost entirely pointless:

1) A scene in a shoe store
2) A scene where the guy who is following them around is carrying a large fish while slogging around in a swamp
3) A funeral march that ends with "Chuck" the cop arresting them
4) The most ridiculous fight scene ever filmed, one with more hopping than should have been allowed

Brilliant stuff. And it's Kaurismaki's willingness to linger on the pointless that makes this stuff so good, I think. The written "jokes" are so subtle that you can't really even be sure it's all supposed to be funny. My favorite exchange is this one:

Concert venue guy: Before I can book them, I need to hear them play.
Manager: Is that necessary?

That's followed by this terrific shot of the accordion player's face that made me laugh out loud. Bam! Speaking of their music, I actually like it, and they're far from the worst band in the world. The tuba-accordion-accordion-mandolin-fiddle rock sound you hear at the beginning will have anybody with legs dancing around the living room, and their "Bad to the Bone" is so good that it hurts a little bit. My favorite song might be the bluesy number with the lyric: "Who made that horrible noise in the sauna, what, huh?" Or the country song which ends with a hearty "Yee-haw!" It's great stuff if you're entertained by this sort of thing. And you've got to love a movie that manages to find places in America that look more depressing than the Tundra these polka superstars came from.

My favorite actor of all time--the late, great Matti Pellonpaa--is superb as the manager. You don't need to look further than the scene where he greets a person with a barking "Hello!" and an awkward wave to see why I think this guy is the greatest actor to ever live.

Jim Jarmusch has a cameo as a used car salesman.

Next up: Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses.

Lights in the Dusk

2006 Aki Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 15/20

Plot: The most pathetic man on earth, a security guard in Helsinki, falls for a blond gal who he doesn't realize is way out of his league. They begin dating, but it turns out she's only using him so that she and another guy can steal jewelry from the mall where Koistenin works. Meanwhile, a woman who Koistenin purchases hot dogs from wonders why he isn't interested in her.

Getting to see an Aki Kaurismaki movie has become like a special ocassion for me. This is Kaurismaki attempting noir, complete with the biggest dupe for a protagonist you'll likely find, a pretty nasty femme fatale, and lots and lots of smoking. The camera floats a little more in this than in some of Kaurismaki's earlier work, but the style hasn't changed much. Things still crawl along at a snail's pace (but in a good way!), slowly enough to frustrate most folks used to watching movies with scenes where stuff actually happens. That's what I like about these movies though. You really get to appreciate the nuances of these quirky, mostly sad and desperate characters. Kaurismaki's characters aren't exactly rushing through life, really making Finland seem like the lethargic place on the planet, and it would almost seem unnatural to see them do much of anything. In fact, it's almost shocking to see any of his characters moving around much at all. The jewel thieving probably has the most rapid movements, and it's shot so that you don't even really see the characters. Another scene involves our protagonist and three burlier fellows taking it outside, and the director chooses to not have the camera go outside at all. Instead, he focuses on a swinging door and, once it stops swinging, just a door. Then, the three burlier fellows come back in, just as we expected they would. It's sad and it's humorous, and that's just what's really awesome about these movies, their ability to be both simultaneously. I don't want to say bittersweet because it would sound like a cliche. I think the only appropriate adjective is Kaurismakian. By the way, this has a poignant sweet ending, the sort of ending that you learn to expect from this guy, so it's not all despairing over the miserable existence of a true loser.

Somebody needs to make this guy's movies more widely available. One a year. That's all I'm asking for.

Sauna

2008 horror allegory

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A pair of Swedish brothers work alongside Russian soldiers to form the boundaries between their countries following a lengthy war. They get to a tiny village with a mysterious sauna. One of the brother's sins come back to haunt him.

It's lazy viewing on my part probably. I kind of lost interest in this one early on despite some good costumes, creepy settings, and a mysterious vibe. My brain, numbed, never recovered, and by the time the really strange final fifteen minutes rolled in, it was too late for me to figure out what the hell was going on. The characters aren't "people" enough to be real. Instead, they seem to work more as figures in an allegory. Likewise, the story feels incomplete. It starts in the middle, doesn't really go anywhere, and ends in a baffling flurry of nightmare imagery. We're in more weird than affecting territory here. Sauna does seem to have interesting ideas and some terrifying, maybe even memorable, imagery, but as a horror story or a fable, it feels unfinished. But like I said, that could be my fault. It's one of those types of movies I needed to watch with somebody smarter so that it could be explained to me.

Drifting Clouds

1996 Aki Kaurismaki joint

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Middle-aged married couple Lauri and Ilona have financial trouble when they lose their jobs as a bus driver and head waiter in the same week. They do their best to keep their dignity and survive.

Man, I love this guy's movies! This is another fairy tale, a movie where life happens to some regular people but they come out ok in the end. There's just something about the simple style, the simple dialogue, and the simple stories in this Kaurismaki movies that make me so happy. As with the others, a lot of the beauty of this is in the fringe details, the kinds of things that no other director would draw attention to. I loved a scene when Illona took an order, opened a little window into the kitchen and hollered out the order, and then went into the kitchen to cook the food, all to give the impression (maybe even to herself) that she was working in a nicer restaurant. And I love how the husband, when despairing, would just walk into his house and fall face-forward onto the floor. They're sad situations, but they're situations you're allowed to laugh at because this is an Aki Kaurismaki movie and you know things will turn out just fine for the characters in the end. I also love the dialogue. A lot is said in very simple ways, but there's also a lot said when things aren't said at all, when Kaurismaki's long shots extend a little longer than they're supposed to, like in the scene where Lauri buys a color television and they just sit there staring at it even though it's not turned on. This was supposed to star my favorite actor, Matti Pellonpaa, but he died during pre-production and was no longer able to do it. Aki-regular Kati Outinen (Shadows, Match Factory Girl, and The Man without a Past) is in this though. I like her. She's strange looking in a strangely appealing way. Maybe it's an acquired taste because the more I see her, the more attractive I think she is. It's a shame that this guy's movies aren't easier to find.

Night on Earth

1991 Jim Jarmusch movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Five synchronous episodes in five taxi cabs in five cities. An aspiring mechanic drives a casting agent home from the L.A. airport. A German cab driver in New York tries to get Yo-Yo from Manhattan to Brooklyn. An African in Paris transports a blind woman to a pier. A verbose, loud-mouthed Italian drives a man who isn't a bishop to a place the man who isn't a bishop would probably rather not go. And in Helsinki, one tortured soul picks up three others to give them a ride across town after a night of drinking.

Another movie I didn't like very much the first time I saw it. After the first segment (the one with Winona Ryder), I figured I still wouldn't like it, but Night on Earth just gets better and better. Trudge through segment one, and you'll be rewarded. These are typically Jarmuschian character studies, as well as studies of time and place, but in short story form. The style might be a little different than Down by Law or Strangers in Paradise, but that love he's got for the characters he creates is still there. It's also got that quiet poignancy that sort of sneaks up on you. The attention to details, or the patience Jarmusch has in drawing focus to certain details, is still there, as are the deadpan humor and terrific irony. The dialogue's presentation is unique in that it allows the audience to see both sides of the conversation as if from the front of the cab and therefore makes extraneous camera movements or multiple views completely unnecessary. Exterior shots--mostly, it seems, of the seedier parts of the represented cities--are well shot, and the midnight drunken circus music of Tom Waits (bias alert!) perfectly compliments the wee hours of the freaky ghost town settings. It's easy to pick a least favorite of the five segments (and honestly, I don't exactly hate Ryder's story), but picking a favorite among the other four is difficult stuff. I can imagine Roberto Benigni would get on most people's nerves, but I love that guy. The last story (the Finnish one) has the guy who I'm going to start referring to as my favorite actor as soon as I bother learning his name, the guy in Kaurismaki's Ariel, Shadows in Paradise, and Leningrad Cowboys movies.

Ok, I'm not that lazy. Matti Pellonpaa is his name. I am too lazy to figure out how to put dots above the a's in his name though.

Question for Cory: Which Jim Jarmusch movies have you seen?

The Man without a Past

2002 Aki Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Arriving in a new town, our protagonist is attacked by some thugs, beaten very badly, and robbed. He loses his memory and tries to put some kind of life together--getting a home in a sort of shanty town, repairing a juke box, finding employment, and hooking up with a Salvation Army worker.

Ho-hum. Another great Aki Kaurismaki movie. I can't quite place my finger on it, but there's something a little different about this one than the previous three I've seen this year. The pacing is the same, the camera still doesn't move, the comedy is just as dry, the romance is still quirky, the characters are still awkward, and the ending is similarly sweet, but there's something different. Nevertheless, another great one. If I could watch nothing but Aki Kaurismaki movies for an entire month, I'm not sure I'd mind. Unfortunately, I'm not sure I can even find any more.

Ariel

1988 Aki Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Taisto's having a bad day. The coal mine where he's worked has shut down and his father decides he's had enough and takes his life in a restaurant bathroom. But at least he gets a Cadillac out of the deal! He withdraws his savings and heads to a place that isn't the place he is at in order to start over. He has trouble with the law, thugs, and finding employment. He also meets and falls for a divorced mother.

Watched this one right after Shadows in Paradise even though it was very very late. But I couldn't think of a reason to wake up the next morning at a reasonable time, and the first Aki Kaurismaki movie put me in the mood to watch another one. So I said, "Hell yeah, mo-fo!" and popped this son of a bitch into the player. It's actually may be the best of the three movies that make up this "trilogy" about lonely working people finding love. It's probably the strangest with some really bizarre developments that really get no reactions from the characters. Father committing suicide? No acknowledgement. Sentenced to jail time? No reaction. These kind of odd character details combined with Kaurismaki's style (a camera that rarely moves, little dialogue) make this both otherworldly and familiar at the same time. I hate to mention Jarmusch again, but like his films, this guy's stuff just pulls you into this quietly offbeat world that you just can't help being entertained by. Maybe I didn't laugh at the deadpan humor in the cracks of these desperate characters' story, but I smiled more than I generally do at three in the morning. Gimme more, mo-fo!

Shadows in Paradise

1986 Aki Kaurismaki movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The story of an on-again/off-again romance between a lonely, socially-awkward garbage man and a grocery store cashier. When she helps him bandage up a wound on his hand, he gets the nerve to ask her on a date. He takes her to play Bingo; needless to say, the date doesn't work out. But following drastic measures the woman takes after losing her job, she gets some help from the garbage man.

No wonder that Kaurismaki movie (The Match Factory Girl) I watched earlier this year reminded me of Jarmusch. Apparently, they're good buddies, and Jarmusch even had a cameo in the Leningrad Cowboys movie as a used car salesman. This, like The Match Factory Girl and Ariel (see next blog entry), have that same quiet tone that Jarmusch's movies have with a pace that forces you to focus on the subtleties, the quirks, the fringe details. The minimalistic film's story stumbles along in a slow motion stream-of-consciousness that reflects life pretty accurately, and there's an unpredictability here with the characters' expressions, mannerisms, and words that makes this a complete joy to watch even when things aren't necessarily joyous for them. This is the type of movie that just hits the spot. Despite miserable characters, bleak settings, and sad situations, this little movie still made me happier than any non-animated film has made me in a long time.

The Match Factory Girl

1990 Finnish drama

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Iris lives a lonely life. She works at a match-making factory all day before going home where she lives with her parents and sleeps on the couch. She attempts to venture out and meet guys, but it doesn't work out. One night, she meets a bearded fellow and wonders if she has a future with him. She does, but it's not the future either of them had in mind.

This really reminded me of Jarmusch, and I thought this short flick managed to set a tone and tell a story very well with very little dialogue (almost none for the first 30 minutes of the movie) and some rather mundane imagery. There's very little movement, too, and the somber, almost clinical way Iris's story is told forces you to focus on every single detail as the story progresses. Blink and you're completely miss the humor in this one, but it's there and it's dark. Like Aki Kaurismaki (writer/director who I didn't think I knew but who apparently did the Leningrad Cowboys movie I saw last year), the actress playing the main character does an excellent job while seemingly doing nothing at all. Her face, expressionless and shockingly unchanging, subtly tells tales that really couldn't be told any other way. I'm wondering if there's any connection between this movie and the old "Match Stick Girl" Christmasy story. Two other movies are included in the Criterion set, and I look forward to checking them out.

Leningrad Cowboys Go America

1989 Finnish comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: The Leningrad Cowboys are a Finnish polka band who, after failing to impress a talent scout in their native land, take his advice to tour America with their shady manager. America, as it is pointed out, will listen to anything. With their frozen bassist brother atop their newly-purchased used automobile, they travel from New York to New Orleans to a wedding date in Mexico, passing by the trashiest parts of the good ole U.S.A. and playing in the dumpiest dives.

Funny bits here, but it all wears thin. They've got funny haircuts, funny music, funny lines, etc., but the Blues Brothers meets Stroszek comedy is a little flat. It's unfortunately too much like a Saturday Night Live sketch stretched into an 80-minute comedy. Jim Jarmusch cameos as a used car salesman, and the style of the film is a little like his. Mini-scenes, lots of silence. Humorous moments, my favorite being the "Is that necessary?" response of their manager after the owner of a club they want to play at asks to hear their music first. I really expected this to be better than it was and the music to be a little worse than it was. Their rendition of "Bad to the Bone" rocked pretty hard.

Note: Apparently, this is followed by sequels--Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (?), Leningrad Cowboys Go Space, Leningrad Cowboys Meet the Brave Little Toaster.

Me, lamenting the fact that I have worse (but less ridiculous) hair than the Leningrad Cowboys: