A fringe recommendation- no better than the 30th best
film of 1989 but there’s enough here I think to archive it and revisit it
To make clear that Kaurismäki is an acolyte of Jarmusch (though
they’re really contemporaries) and fully synergize the two –Jarmusch has a role
in the film. Matti Pellonpää (Kaurismäki’s go-to male lead) would appear in
Jarmusch 1991 Night on Earth too
A different tone than Shadows
in Paradise or Ariel– more on an
overt comedy (owing half to those films but half to the silent comedians of
Keaton and Chaplin)—there’s not nearly as much hard-hitting bittersweet ironic
realism here- this is closer to a Finnish zero-budget version of The Blues Brothers meets Wim Wenders
Road trilogy
Black and white titles like a silent film- often ironic like “a promising start” before the vignettes
Wild hair, shoes—like living Dr. Seuss characters
Just sitting in in a row faces in the same frame (and these aren’t
the studied tableau shots of Greenway or Wes Anderson)—deadpan in cars
I do actually think the title song is good- haha
I got a kick out of the Inside
Llewyn Davis “there’s no commercial potential” line here
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