• 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
  • Recommend