Pidä huivista kiinni, Tatjana

I have not seen a film like this one ever. While it doesn't stand out, Kaurismaeki's impressive tact kept my heart and funnybone peaked and suspended for the duration of the film with his classic understated, wry charm. Surf rock has, incidentally, never looked so good on a rocky northern coast.

To say the least, the film piqued an interest in Kaurismaeki that has led to my heart-melting and guffawing appreciation of others like the matchstick factory girl and (although to a bit lesser extent) The Man Without a Past.

While I could drop 50-cent movie reviews, chiches, and plot synopses here, I'll get to the point instead: Kaurismaki is intelligent, and seems to have no need for pretense. He has digested American images and music, and given us his own irresistible story of Finland in this dynamic. His aesthetic tact, pacing, use of light, and soundtracking are all par excellence.

This film is his best, in my opinion, and I hold him next to Julio Medem as the winner of this century's title for the most consistently gorgeous film-making.

Even though there tend to be some incredibly funny scenes in his films, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has only done three proper comedies in his career thus far: the hilarious Leningrad Cowboys Go America, the less inspired, but still watchable sequel Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses and Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana. It is the last of these that stands out as the funniest (read: best), largely because it doesn't try to be openly amusing most of the time.

At first it looks like a road movie, since we've got two average Finnish blokes going on a trip together: one of them, the coffee-addicted Valto (Mato Valtonen), is trying to escape from his boring daily routine (he lives with his mother, whom he locks up in a closet at the beginning of the movie); his pal, Reino (Matti Pellonpää), a mechanic with a soft spot for Koskenkorva (the Finns' favorite booze), comes along just for the fun. The two don't do much aside from driving and drinking, that is until they run into Klavdia (Kirsi Tykkyläinen) and Tatjana (Kati Outinen), two women from the former Soviet Union who ask if they can join the odd couple.

This is where the film really comes to life, as Kaurismäki sets to emphasize, and thus subsequently erase, the difference between two cultures: Klavdia and Tatjana enjoy chatting and dancing, whereas Reino and Valto prefer to shut up and keep drinking (the longest either of them ever speaks is when the former brags about breaking some guy's teeth). And yet their silence says more than all the dialogue Kaurismäki has ever written (which, Bohemian Life notwithstanding, isn't that much), and through that non-communication something deeper starts to take shape between the otherwise rude Reino and the sweet Tatjana, leading to a beautiful shot (also used as the film's poster) where the two of them are shown sitting together on a bench. This stunning image (which is quite similar to a shot in Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation), relying solely on the actors' faces and (minimal) gestures, not words, is one of the most touching the Finnish master has ever filmed, and invites obvious comparisons with Shadows in Paradise, also featuring Outinen and Pellonpää. The latter, in particular, gave his best performances on those occasions, being to Kaurismäki what Robert De Niro used to be to Martin Scorsese, and his premature death at age 41, which occurred a year after this film was completed, adds an extra emotional punch to the movie, especially the aforementioned scene and the oddly (for the director, that is) optimistic, heartfelt epilogue.

Kaurismäki's films are, admittedly, a bit of an acquired taste, something not everyone might enjoy (I wasn't actually that big a fan either at first, before I understood how captivating his works can be), though Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana, is the kind of movie non-fans could give a try, its magic lying in the director's trademark minimalistic approach: things are kept real and simple, meaning that the movie may be very short (59 minutes), yes, but also that every single one of those minutes is unmissable.

After seeing this movie I wondered how foreigners would experience it. Without knowledge of the social history of Finland in last century this movie must seem very strange. And if you know nothing about our civil war and the division of society these characters are devoid of meaning. Just two avoidant personalities, maybe? However from a Finnish perspective this is the perfect description of the outsiders of our society. The fellows who are left behind, but don´t agree with that viewpoint themselves. Who are stranded in the no-man´s-land between urban success and country desolation. They try to get along somehow and when they meet two Russian girls it´s the irony of fate staring them in the eye. The Russians are able to surpass social barriers without flinching, they just go on and talk, but these two Fenno-ugrian oedipal conflict prototypes can´t seem to find some meaning in this. Instead they resort to sulking, one of the basic Finnish social coping skills. What else can you do when you´ve got nothing in an otherwise expansive society, when there´s this huge discrepancy between your own success expectancies and reality, and when you watch the grandchildren of the victorious side in the Civil War pass you by. Not much, according to Kaurismäki who manages to make movies about that part of Finland that never goes to movies. For a Finn, the music is lovely as usual, the kind of music we grew up to after the war.

The Finnish infant terrible returns to the monochromatic rock'n'roll vibes of his earlier CALAMARI UNION, only this time he substitutes the avant-garde surrealism with the silent, deadpan minimalism he meticulously cultivated for most of his career. Two thirty-something rockers working menial jobs and leading dead-end lives embark on an impromptu journey in their cool car, along with a coffee-car mixer and a portable record player. Along the way they meet two Russian women who are looking for a lift.

TATJANA is part road movie, part romance, both done in Kaurismaki's distinct, ever so enjoyable and relaxed, quiet way. The black and white cinematography is absolutely fantastic, the soundtrack as usually an eclectic mix of rock'n'roll, jazz and folk and the mood of the same deadpan unaffection that permeates the rest of his work. His characters cold and detached on the outside, yet they miraculously emote better than the best overacting could afford you.

Clocking at only 59 minutes, TATJANA doesn't so much feel as a fully-fledged movie as a broad stroke. Seen independent it's one thing; seen as part of Kaurismaki's broader universe, like another vignette of gloomy but not miserable Finnish life, it takes its proper place. See it in a double-bill with CALAMARI UNION or ARIEL.

Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki is up to his usual deadpan business with one of his most enigmatically-titled features, Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana, a title which remains a mystery, to me at least, long after the credits have rolled. Shot in black-and-white, the film appears to be Kaurismaki's version of a road movie, often resembling the early films of Wim Wenders, such as Alice in the Cities and The American Friend, although the influence of Jim Jarmusch can also be felt throughout. As is often the case with Kaurismaki, dialogue is delivered with little emotion and passion, story is an afterthought, and the main characters are what many people would refer to as losers. Still, even with all the restraint on show and a running time that that barely touches the hour mark, this is one of the director's funniest features, and certainly one of his most relatable.

We open with Valto (Mato Valtonen), a huge doorstop of a man who resembles Eugene from The Walking Dead with an even more ridiculous haircut. He seems to run a clothing business with his mother, and when parent and son have a tiff over the lack of coffee (he has a serious coffee addiction), Valto locks her away in the cupboard and heads for the auto garage. Here he hooks up with his vodka-swigging friend Reino (Matti Pellonpaa), who has just finished work on Valto's car, and the odd couple head out on a road trip with seemingly no destination in mind. They stop at a bar and are spotted by Russian Klavdia (Kirsi Tykkylainen) and Estonian Tatjana (Kati Outinen), who see these two miserable-looking Finns as their free ride to the harbour for their journey home. And so begins one of the cinema's strangest road-trips, which mainly consists Valto and Reino sulking and ignoring their guests, even when they are forced to sleep in the same room.

Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana may frequently surprise those not accustomed to Kaurismaki's distinct auteur style. Not in a dramatic sense of course, but in the way it refuses to veer off into more comfortable genre territory. You keep expecting Valto and Reino to break their silence and start a romance with their new lady friends, but despite the presence of some romantic undercurrents, these men remain a mystery. This doesn't mean that they're unrelatable however, as anybody with the slightest social anxiety will recognise the awkwardness of their interactions, and get a good laugh from it. There's actually more going on here than I realised before reading up about the film after it had finished. Kaurismaki layers this incredibly slight tale with satire and social commentary, but this will fly over the head of most non-Finns such as myself. However, this doesn't dilute the sheer joy to be had with Tatiana. If the characters in Alexander Payne's Sideways were introverted and shy, it may have come out something like this. This is a low-key pleasure and surprisingly upbeat for Kaurismaki, and proves that happiness can be found in unhappiness.