Kari Väänänen

A shocking crime forces a man to re-evaluate his life, only to find that going straight is more complicated than he imagined in this acclaimed drama from Finland. Ali (Jorma Tommila) is a low-level criminal who spends much of his spare time working out at a gym with his brother Pulu (Tommi Eronen). Ali spends most of his day stoned on marijuana, while Pulu is known to drink cleaning products when he's run out of booze. Ali has fallen in love with Inka (Maria Jarvenhelmi), a bright woman with a mind of her own, and her independent nature occasionally throws him into a fit of jealousy. One night, convinced another man is trying to seduce Inka, Ali goes berserk and shoots the man several times before beating him to death with a golf club. Ali is sent to prison for his crime, where he learns that Inka is pregnant with his child; when she sends him a videotape of their son shortly after he is born, Ali is reduced to tears, and makes a solemn pledge to lead a better life and be a fit father for his son. But when Ali is released, he finds that Inka has not waited for him, and she is now involved with Alpi (Ikki Koivula), a member of a crime syndicate who was close friends with the man Ali murdered. Bad Luck Love was the first film to be nominated in all 12 categories at the Jussis Awards, the Finnish Academy Awards. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

The brutal effect of war on ordinary people is the subtext of this World War II drama from Finland. Perkola (Peter Franzen) is the leader of a small Finnish platoon sent on a mission into Russian territory in 1942. Perkola has been terribly upset since he was told that his fiancée, a nurse, was killed in battle. As the war progresses, Perkola finds that he and his men are slowly becoming capable of acts of shocking violence he would have believed unthinkable as a civilian. Rukajarven tie/Ambush received enthusiastic notices for its excellent photography and realistic battle scenes in its screenings at the 1999 Gothenburg Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Imbued with flashes of comedy amidst the suspense, this Finnish mystery follows an urban policeman assigned to oversee the police force of a tiny rural community. There, he immerses himself in solving the case of a teenage girl who was murdered 18 months before. The officer's predecessor blamed the killing on a transient, but further investigation reveals that one of the tight-lipped townsfolk may be responsible, something his or her neighbors are anxious to keep secret. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

This comedy is a sequel to Aki Kaurismaki's successful Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The Lennigrad 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, All Movie Guide

Ripa (Sam Huber) is an honest con-man, if there is such a thing. He honestly wants money so that he can make the kinds of sexy and violent films he wants to make. He can't seem to get any from his ex-wife, and the state film board won't front any. He has been getting by on little loans from his ex-wife, who wants her money back. He has also been getting some loans from a friend of his who makes gay porn films. He wants repayment, too, in the form of Ripa's appearance in some of his films. Despite his precarious situation, as this comedy opens, it seems like he will somehow manage to get by, but increasingly outrageous encounters put him completely over the edge, and into a very peculiar angelic state. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide

Finnish director Mika Kaurismaki (who also co-wrote the screenplay) made his English-language feature debut with this tale of foreigners adrift in the treacherous labyrinth of the Brazilian jungle. Kari (Kari Vaananen) is driving down the Trans-Amazonica Highway -- actually a two-lane dirt road that leads out of Rio -- with his two small daughters, Nina (Minna Sovio) and Lea (Ailo Sovio). He is fleeing the Brazilian authorities and is already on the lam from his homeland for taking his wife off life support after a car accident left her in a coma. His car eventually runs out of gas, and the family is rescued by Dan (Robert Davi), a bitter American expatriate and bush pilot who involves Kari in a scheme to use an old bulldozer he has discovered for mining purposes. Dan's plan will wreak havoc with the already devastated rainforest, however, and Kari, under the influence of a native woman (Rae Dawn Chong), starts to doubt his involvement in the project. Good performances, an important message, and excellent photography are all wasted on a story that starts out well but becomes unbalanced when one of the main characters suddenly dies, practically eliminating any conflict or confrontation toward which the plot may have been building. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide

In this somewhat leisurely-paced drama, a former model recollects her life and considers what she will do with it now that she can no longer model. She is in jail for killing an abusive boyfriend who has ruined her face for future modeling work. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this chaotic jumble of a story, an exemplary product of a school of anarchic filmmaking, a crew of people living on the fringes of Finnish society inhabit a variety of transient abodes, from the attic of a building to a large outbuilding made to hold garbage. Some of the residents earn their place in the community, such as it is, by stealing something to eat from supermarkets, others specialize in theft or welfare fraud. One woman, who plays the bagpipes from her rooftop refuge, is frequently raped by the boyfriend of the title character Iines. However, rape may not be the proper word for these episodes of sexual brutality by the man, for they seem to be tacitly accepted by everyone involved. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide