Eija Vilpas Movies
- 2000
Auli Mantila directs this slick thriller about a band of bad girls who strike out against Finnish male pigs. The film opens with comely forensic dentist Oili Lyyra (Tanjalotta Raikka) examining the pie hole of a rotting corpse found in a Helsinki harbor. Her cop boyfriend Eero (Kari Sorvali) is in charge of the investigation and he is flummoxed. Not only is he confounded as to who the dead man was -- but where the body was dumped. Later, Oili meets up with her sister Laura (Anna-Elina Lyytikainen) and the group of mysteriously-close women she consorts with. Meanwhile, a thuggish driving instructor who has been getting frisky with some of his nubile clients gets his comeuppance from Laura and her pals. While Laura strikes fear in the hearts of Helsinki chauvinists, Oili finds herself increasingly entangled in the group. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Irma Junnilainen, Leena Klemola, (more)
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
- Starring:
- Gena Rowlands, Winona Ryder, (more)
- 1987
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, Rovi
- Starring:
- Eija Vilpas, Kari Väänänen, (more)
- 1987
In this melodrama, Marten, Ursula and Harri have gotten themselves into a life of drug-peddling, but now they want to get out of it. Like all such situations, it proves to be more difficult than just stating one's intentions. It's not clear that these three indecisive people are really up to the challenge they have posed for themselves. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Ville Virtanen
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