Research Guides @ Fordham: Nordic Literature, Language, News, and Film: Finland

The Films of Aki Kaurismäki

Aki Kaurismäki's Leningrad Cowboys Leningrad Cowboys Go America is a 1989 road movie by Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki about the adventures of the Leningrad Cowboys, an eccentric band that travels to the United States to become successful, and combines their brand of polka music with various American styles as they make their way to Mexico.
Call Number: W DVD 12,687
Aki Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy The poignant, deadpan films of Aki Kaurismäki are pitched somewhere in the wintry nether lands between comedy and tragedy. And rarely in his body of work has the line separating those genres seemed thinner than in what is often identified as his "Proletariat Trilogy," Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl. In these three films, something like social-realist farces, Kaurismäki surveys the working-class outcasts of his native Finland with detached yet disarming amusement. Featuring commanding, off-key visual compositions and delightfully dour performances, the films in this triptych exemplify the talents of a unique and highly influential film artist.
Call Number: W DVD 9536
Le Havre In the titular Normandy port city, a shoe shine man (Andre Wilms) strikes up an improbable friendship with an adolescent boy sought by police as part of a smuggled band of African immigrants, making it his purpose to reunite the young emigre with his mother. In his typical poker-faced comedic style, Aki Kaurismaki (The Man Without a Past) offers a modern-day fable suffused with hope and salvation that eschews the pitfalls of easy sentimentality. This deftly upbeat film is recommended for any viewer open to reading subtitles. [See Trailers, LJ 6/1/12.] (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Call Number: W DVD 13,104
Lights in the Dusk Lights in the Dusk (Finnish: Laitakaupungin valot) is a 2006 Finnish comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by Aki Kaurismäki. Starring Janne Hyytiäinen, Ilkka Koivula, and Maria Järvenhelmi, the film was presented at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.[1] It is the last installment in Kaurismäki's "Finland" trilogy after Drifting Clouds (1996) and The Man Without a Past (2002). The film is about a security guard who is set up in a robbery by a femme fatale who exploits his gullibility and loyalty. Classical music is used as background throughout much of the film, including excerpts from the work of the famous Swedish tenor Jussi Björling. It has been argued that the film deals with the ways in which "[c]apitalism has painted the town red, just a different shade of red from its socialist connotations," as well as that "rock is so important to the director that a number of his males, including Koistinen, favor a 50s, greasy, sweptback hair style, to go along with their love of rock 'n' roll (definitely a reminder of how rock was the way to rebel in socialist countries)
Call Number: W DVD 7829

Finnish Film Journals

Film Journalen
Finland's Swedish-language film magazine. The magazine dates back to 1989, but information is available only for selected volumes (2010 ff). Offers links to other Finnish film websites with reviews in Finnish. Material in Swedish.
Lähikuva
A peer-reviewed, open-access, Finnish journal specializing in media culture and media theory. Material in Finnish.

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Other Finnish Magazines by Movie Mags
A list of film magazines from Finland. Some are current, many are historical.

Finland in Film - Online info...

Finnish Film Foundation
The Finnish Film Foundation's task is to support and develop Finnish film production, distribution and exhibition. The site includes links to upcoming releases, news, and festivals, as well as distributors and exhibitors.

Solar Films Inc.
One of Finland's leading production companies, involved in feature films and television

Finnish Film (17)

Alvar Aalto, technology and nature. 2004. W DVD 3882. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Kukushka (The cuckoo). 2003. W DVD 7564. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Lights in the dusk (Laitakaupungin valot). 2007. W DVD 7829. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

The Match factory girl: Those Were The Days (Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö). 1993. W VHS 3627. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Night on earth. 2007. W DVD 7263. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

The palace. 2006. W DVD 5549. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Postia pappi Jaakobille (Letters to Father Jacob). 2011. W DVD 13,399. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Producing adults (Lapsia ja aikuisia). 2005. W DVD 4900. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Rare exports: a Christmas tale. 2011. W DVD 12,744. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Rasputin. 2005. W DVD 4451. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

The red line. 2010. W DVD 11,473. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Sauna. 2009. W DVD 11,410. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Zombie and the ghost-train. 1991. W VHS 3594. 1 copy available at Lincoln Center.

Postia pappi Jaakobille (Letters to Father Jacob) Trailer

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Nordic Literature, Language, News, and Film: Finland

Finland