Friday, April 1, 2011

Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana

Two Finns, one loves coffee, the other vodka, go on a car trip and on the way pick up two women, one Russian, the other Estonian.

Great title! It's a Kaurismäki road movie, a funny but strange film, that might be his most poetic one. It's also short, lasting less than an hour, and in black and white. There's a sequence of the two men in the car, with one of them, Matti Pellonpää, having a long monologue. It's very unusual in a Kaurismäki film, but it turns out it's only there to set up the men's complete silence and shyness around the two women, not even being able to look in their eyes.

I see on IMDB that Kaurismäki got a new film coming later this year called Le Havre starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Kati Outinen, so that's something to look forward to. There is also this great quote by the man himself: "Cinema is dead. It died 1962, I think it was in October."

2 comments:

  1. Haha, good quote. I loved an interview back in the days of Dogme when he made fun of the whole concept: "Why only one light? Why is it a scene more authentic with only one light? Will it kill them using TWO?

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  2. Aki Kaurismäki's "Le Havre" is going to be playing at Cannes. I'm excited for when it gets a wider release.

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