Matti Pellonpää Movies

This comedy is a sequel to Aki Kaurismaki's successful Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The Lenigrad Cowboys are billed as the "worst rock'n'roll band in the world." In the last film they went to the U.S. In this film they travel from Mexico back to Lennigrad. The story begins in Mexico. The band, after having a top ten hit, decided to settle there. Their success seemed assured until they discovered the joys of tequila which killed off many of the band members. Those that didn't die went native. They were impoverished and living on cactus when they decide to travel to Coney Island to play a gig. They reunite with their old manager Vladimir who now calls himself Moses. He vows to return the band home to "the Promised Land," Siberia. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

In this Finnish-German comedy two mis-fit men discover that they need more than body language to express their interest in two travelling women. Cigar smoking, coffee slurping Valto works at home for his mother. The day she runs out of coffee is the day he locks her in a cupboard and takes-off after first swiping the cash from her purse. Before hitting the road, he picks up Reino, his oily-haired buddy with rock-n-roll affectations. Together they cruise the back roads of Finland. Reino guzzles vodka and Valto his coffee. Two comely hitchhikers appear. They are the thin Tatiana from Estonia, and the chunky Klaudia from Russia. Tatiana only knows enough Finnish to ask for a lift. Both women seem interested in the two men who are both too intimidated to speak. The four travel in silence and then spend an innocent night in a hotel. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

This is a well-regarded contemporary dramatic retelling of the story most familiar to audiences from Puccini's great opera La Bohème and was made by the noted Finnish film director Aki Kaurismaki. Like the opera, it is based on the novel Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. Despite their ever-present poverty, which poses a constant threat to their continued existence, the artists and their friends in this movie speak in only the most polite, elegant, and genteel manner, which only serves to underscore their desperate situation. In the story, the poet Marcel has been unable to come up with the rent for his barely tolerable room and has been evicted from it. While wandering in his neighborhood, he catches the eye of Rodolfo, an Albanian immigrant eating in a small cafe, who waves him over and invites him to share his dinner. Though they have never met, they are soon deeply involved in a discussion about art. They leave the restaurant together and, for want of a better idea, wander back to Marcel's former room. There the poet and his new friend, the painter Rodolfo, discover an equally congenial companion in the man who just rented his room, Schaumard, an Irish composer. Just one step away from starvation most of the time, these loyal friends share resources to help one another out. On one occasion, Marcel needs a suit for a job interview and is able to borrow one from one of Rodolfo's portrait sitters long enough to be interviewed and get a paid job. With his earnings from his new editing job, Marcel buys Schaumard a car he needs. On the job, Marcel meets poor provincial girl Musette, whom he falls for, and at the same time Rodolfo finds another poor provincial girl, Mimi, on his doorstep. He quickly comes to love Mimi, but circumstances constantly thwart their being together, until he at last succeeds in making a place for them and she dies in his arms. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Jim Jarmusch's deadpan comedy-of-the-night is a collection of five vignettes taking place in the enclosed space of a cab ride, each occurring simultaneously in five different cities and five different time zones -- Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rome, and Helsinki. The Los Angeles episode takes place at dusk, as high-powered casting agent Victoria (Gena Rowlands) gets a ride from L.A. International Airport with tomboy driver Corky (Winona Ryder), who would rather go on driving her cab than take up Victoria's offer to make her a superstar. In New York City, novice East German cabbie Helmut Grokenberger (Armin Mueller-Stahl) has difficulty working the foot pedals to his hack, and his passenger, YoYo (Giancarlo Esposito), ends up driving himself to Brooklyn, picking up the shrill-voiced Angela (Rosie Perez) along the way. In Paris, an African cab driver (Isaach De Bankolé) ejects a collection of drunken African diplomats from his cab and picks up a beautiful but surly blind girl (Béatrice Dalle). In Rome, cab driver Gino (Roberto Benigni) engages in a heartfelt monologue confessing his past sexual exploits to his passenger, a priest who is dying of a heart attack in the back seat. The film winds down in the last melancholy vignette, taking place in Helsinki, as taxi driver Mika (Matti Pellonpää) picks up three inebriated workmen who regale him with hard-luck stories. But Mika has a much harsher story of his own to tell. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Räpsy (Matti Pellonpää) leaves prison after his term is up with every intention of going straight. However, he's got a few debts to pay to some pretty shady characters. In addition, he's being doggedly followed by a hardworking police detective. While he works off his debts, he hides for a bit with a very overweight former hooker, and then hooks up with a young woman who is a one-woman medicine show, promoting some sort of secular miracle. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki may not have become a household name in arthouse circles until the U.S. release of Match Factory Girl in 1992, but by then he had already established an international reputation with Ariel, which was named the Best Foreign Language Film of 1991 by the National Society of Film Critics. A series of unfortunate events befall the film's hero, Taisto (Turo Pajala). First, he loses his job when the mine closes down. A suicidal friend gives him a car, and Taisto takes all his money and heads to the city to find work. He's quickly robbed by a couple of thugs, and shows up in town with no money and no job. Soon, he meets Irmeli (Susanna Haavisto), a resourceful divorcée who works a wide variety of jobs to support her young son and pay off their mortgage. "Will you disappear in the morning?" Irmeli dryly asks on their first night together. "No," Taisto responds emotionlessly, "We'll be together forever." Unable to find work, Taisto tries to sell his car. But then he runs into one of the men who robbed him, who pulls a knife on him. Taisto manages to disarm the man, and is subduing him when the police arrive. Taisto is convicted of assault and attempted robbery. He winds up in a cell with Mikkonen (Matti Pellonpää), who is in prison for manslaughter. He claims he's innocent, but tells Taisto that by the time he gets out of jail, he "won't be able to go three hours without killing someone." When Irmeli comes for a visit, Taisto impulsively proposes, and before long, she's helping him and Mikkonen plot their escape. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

The plot of William Shakespeare's Hamlet had already been transposed to the modern business world twice before the release of Hamlet Goes Business. These earlier films, Strange Illusion (46) and The Rest is Silence (60), are nearly as dour as the Shakespeare original. Only Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki was able to see the dark humor and satirical implications of such a time-displacement effort: his modernization of Hamlet was set in a rubber duck factory, making all the passions torn to tatters seem slightly ridiculous. While the film follows the traditional tale of a son seeking revenge for his father's murder, director Kaurismaki never misses an opportunity to skewer the business world, just as he'd been doing in collaboration with his writer/director brother Mika ever since 1982. Also released in some countries as Hamlet Gets Business, this film was first seen in Finland as Hamlet Liikemaailmassa. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Avant-garde, experimental and misogynist in the bargain, this oddball film is about 17 men named Frank who make their way through Helsinki in a commandeered subway car. Their goal is to reach the symbolically peaceful, perfect coastal town of Eira. Along the way they perform some pop music, one of them is shot, they split up, and finally two manage to reach the sea. Once there, they discover that the water is filled with dead fish, and a decrepit rowboat somehow becomes an object of contention. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi