Comrade, I don't think we're in Siberia anymore.
Aki Kaurismaki's Leningrad Cowboys Get Their Own Volume
In Criterion's Eclipse Series
Aki Kaurismaki's Leningrad Cowboys
Leningrad Cowboys Go America 1989
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses 1994
Total Balalaika Show 1994
Copyright 2011 The Criterion Collection/Eclipse Series 29
It started with a VHS tape that took me years to find. By the time By the time bay turned their corner of the internet into the world's biggest yard sale, copies were hard to find and sported price tags that were far afield of what I would spend on a used videotape. I finally found a copy at a library sale that had originally come from the long-gone local Blockbusters. It looked and played like new, which meant it might have been rented a half-dozen times if at all. Maybe someone discovered it and did the superfan thing of renting it over and over. I took it home and watched it a few times, leaving it for evenings when I could fully engage while it played. Those mylar artifacts are fragile things and once it snarled or pulled in the VCR, it was gone with no safety net of a DVD release that I could find. For the next Decade or so, Leningrad Cowboys Go America was one of a handful of movies I clung to in VHS form until I could find an affordable version on disc.*
Now that I think about it, this goes back much further than my treasure hunt at the library. My fandom of Leningrad Cowboys started in the late eighties. A friend from school was part of a crew for an indie movie by a director from Finland. She had already worked on a film by Jim Jarmusch and videos for the likes of Webb Wilder and Mojo Nixon, so she had the bona fides to get hired by Aki Kaurismaki. When post-production was finished, she took me and another friend as her "Plus Twos" to the Memphis premier at Brooks Gallery.
You know something? I've been to way too many events where people tried to appear completely unaffected by what was going on. I'd rather have the kind of energy you might feel at a drive-in with a bunch of friends who brought brown paper bags full of home-popped popcorn and way too much energy or the "Our Cops Is On" episode of My Name Is Earl.** That's what it felt like at Brooks that night. Having been there for a few openings, it was easily the most fun I'd ever had at Brooks.
The boxed set contains all three of Kaurismaki's Leningrad Cowboy films: Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, and Total Balalaika Show. They are presented with no extras except the five music videos on the Total Balalaika disc.
Leningrad Cowboys Go America - This was our first look at the boys. Curiously coiffed musicians wearing long, dark coats and even darker shades go to America to seek their fortune. They land in New York, where they are told to go to Mexico to play a wedding. To do this, they buy a used car and start a road trip that shows the same gray, deteriorated landscape that runs by the windows of Jim Jarmusch's characters. Along the way, they stop and play at dives in Memphis, Houston, and some small towns along the way util they make it to Mexico, where the bride and groom are waiting, all smiles and kitted out for their ceremony. They end up staying in Mexico and they have a happy ending. And that's the movie.
There are a few happenings along the way and I could try to explain them. To do so would blow big holes in the continuity, the plot, and every other way they navigate the rules of life in their world. This movie doesn't offer much in the way of any of those, anyway. Just enjoy their otherworldly view of America and more important than that, listen to their music. The way they go from traditional East European styles to Memphis Blues and the muscly classic rock associated with Texas is a thing to behold in its own right.
This Finnish version of Innocents Abroad has appeal as a shaggy dog story, but it's the music that gives it heart and soul.
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses - One of the surest ways to hurt a comedic franchise is to throw money at it and expect the same magic. This is one of the problems with the second Leningrad Cowboys film. The beautiful simplicity of the first film is lost as their second sojourn takes on everything from western religion to national identity to the vagaries of health care. At the heart of the movie is their desire to go back home to Siberia. This gets lost as their despotic leader, who declared himself the grown son of their previous despotic leader who did an Ambrose Bierce and wandered into the southwestern wilderness, never to be seen again orders them to go back to Siberia. Is he really who he says he is? That would make him the tallest five-year-old I've ever seen.
Along the way, they pick up more cult/band members, sing a few songs, and do some set pieces that work as self-contained bits, but slow down the plot, such as it is. People misreading the Old Testament and Das Kapital to and over each other is funny, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. The same can be said of their leader's attempt at creating his own burning bush while everyone else is playing a set gathered around a tractor with a golden calf as a hood ornament. The sum of the parts is memorable, but it just doesn't hold together.
Total Balalaika Show - Based on my feelings about Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, I almost gave this one a pass. I am so glad I hung in there. You will be, too, if you give this set a try. So here's the premise: The Leningrad Cowboys do a concert. I was afraid they might go the half-assed "In Russia songs sing you!" schtick. I had no idea what to expect. It's big, loud, and good lord, it's fun.
70,000 people from Russia and Finland showed up to hear the Leningrad Cowboys play with the Alexandrov Red Army Choir and Dance Ensemble at Senate Square in Helsinki. Before you think it's one of the stilted PBS proto-hootnannies from Lincoln Center, know that this is a full throated combination traditional Russian song and dance and pop covers that keep coming. No matter how you might be surprised by their versions of Happy Together and Yellow Submarine, you'll be gobsmacked every time the title of a pop song appears on the screen. Can they pull it off? Oh, babies, these people have it handled. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the show.
Leningrad Cowboys Go America 1989
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses 1994
Total Balalaika Show 1994
Copyright 2011 The Criterion Collection/Eclipse Series 29
It started with a VHS tape that took me years to find. By the time By the time bay turned their corner of the internet into the world's biggest yard sale, copies were hard to find and sported price tags that were far afield of what I would spend on a used videotape. I finally found a copy at a library sale that had originally come from the long-gone local Blockbusters. It looked and played like new, which meant it might have been rented a half-dozen times if at all. Maybe someone discovered it and did the superfan thing of renting it over and over. I took it home and watched it a few times, leaving it for evenings when I could fully engage while it played. Those mylar artifacts are fragile things and once it snarled or pulled in the VCR, it was gone with no safety net of a DVD release that I could find. For the next Decade or so, Leningrad Cowboys Go America was one of a handful of movies I clung to in VHS form until I could find an affordable version on disc.*
Now that I think about it, this goes back much further than my treasure hunt at the library. My fandom of Leningrad Cowboys started in the late eighties. A friend from school was part of a crew for an indie movie by a director from Finland. She had already worked on a film by Jim Jarmusch and videos for the likes of Webb Wilder and Mojo Nixon, so she had the bona fides to get hired by Aki Kaurismaki. When post-production was finished, she took me and another friend as her "Plus Twos" to the Memphis premier at Brooks Gallery.
You know something? I've been to way too many events where people tried to appear completely unaffected by what was going on. I'd rather have the kind of energy you might feel at a drive-in with a bunch of friends who brought brown paper bags full of home-popped popcorn and way too much energy or the "Our Cops Is On" episode of My Name Is Earl.** That's what it felt like at Brooks that night. Having been there for a few openings, it was easily the most fun I'd ever had at Brooks.
The boxed set contains all three of Kaurismaki's Leningrad Cowboy films: Leningrad Cowboys Go America, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, and Total Balalaika Show. They are presented with no extras except the five music videos on the Total Balalaika disc.
Leningrad Cowboys Go America - This was our first look at the boys. Curiously coiffed musicians wearing long, dark coats and even darker shades go to America to seek their fortune. They land in New York, where they are told to go to Mexico to play a wedding. To do this, they buy a used car and start a road trip that shows the same gray, deteriorated landscape that runs by the windows of Jim Jarmusch's characters. Along the way, they stop and play at dives in Memphis, Houston, and some small towns along the way util they make it to Mexico, where the bride and groom are waiting, all smiles and kitted out for their ceremony. They end up staying in Mexico and they have a happy ending. And that's the movie.
There are a few happenings along the way and I could try to explain them. To do so would blow big holes in the continuity, the plot, and every other way they navigate the rules of life in their world. This movie doesn't offer much in the way of any of those, anyway. Just enjoy their otherworldly view of America and more important than that, listen to their music. The way they go from traditional East European styles to Memphis Blues and the muscly classic rock associated with Texas is a thing to behold in its own right.
This Finnish version of Innocents Abroad has appeal as a shaggy dog story, but it's the music that gives it heart and soul.
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses - One of the surest ways to hurt a comedic franchise is to throw money at it and expect the same magic. This is one of the problems with the second Leningrad Cowboys film. The beautiful simplicity of the first film is lost as their second sojourn takes on everything from western religion to national identity to the vagaries of health care. At the heart of the movie is their desire to go back home to Siberia. This gets lost as their despotic leader, who declared himself the grown son of their previous despotic leader who did an Ambrose Bierce and wandered into the southwestern wilderness, never to be seen again orders them to go back to Siberia. Is he really who he says he is? That would make him the tallest five-year-old I've ever seen.
Along the way, they pick up more cult/band members, sing a few songs, and do some set pieces that work as self-contained bits, but slow down the plot, such as it is. People misreading the Old Testament and Das Kapital to and over each other is funny, but it doesn't seem to go anywhere. The same can be said of their leader's attempt at creating his own burning bush while everyone else is playing a set gathered around a tractor with a golden calf as a hood ornament. The sum of the parts is memorable, but it just doesn't hold together.
Total Balalaika Show - Based on my feelings about Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, I almost gave this one a pass. I am so glad I hung in there. You will be, too, if you give this set a try. So here's the premise: The Leningrad Cowboys do a concert. I was afraid they might go the half-assed "In Russia songs sing you!" schtick. I had no idea what to expect. It's big, loud, and good lord, it's fun.
70,000 people from Russia and Finland showed up to hear the Leningrad Cowboys play with the Alexandrov Red Army Choir and Dance Ensemble at Senate Square in Helsinki. Before you think it's one of the stilted PBS proto-hootnannies from Lincoln Center, know that this is a full throated combination traditional Russian song and dance and pop covers that keep coming. No matter how you might be surprised by their versions of Happy Together and Yellow Submarine, you'll be gobsmacked every time the title of a pop song appears on the screen. Can they pull it off? Oh, babies, these people have it handled. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy the show.
It's tempting to post every song from this concert, but I'm not going to. Best to find this or hunt down Global Balalaika and experience all of it from start to finish. One other thing: There are some bits of coded visual and aural motifs that might be opaque to western viewers. I admit to not getting everything I see and hear, but then this is more a function of my lack of cultural literacy regarding that part of the world. It's for those 70K on Senate Square, anyway.
What makes the first movie and the concert so good is the music that serves as the heart of what we see on the screen. One of my teachers at Memphis State used to say that comedy is very subjective. It is driven my cultural motifs and narrative components that are recognizable to those who share that common origin. Tragedy, on the other hand is universal. Music is too. It transcends barriers because at its best, it makes us feel something.
What makes the first movie and the concert so good is the music that serves as the heart of what we see on the screen. One of my teachers at Memphis State used to say that comedy is very subjective. It is driven my cultural motifs and narrative components that are recognizable to those who share that common origin. Tragedy, on the other hand is universal. Music is too. It transcends barriers because at its best, it makes us feel something.
* Another denizen of this special shelf was "We Married Margo." I just missed the chance to buy this directly from J. D. Shapiro.
**Greg Garcia is one of my favorite show runners/creators. As much as that episode is classic Earl, the Cops episode that featured a night on Dickerson Road still beats it all to pieces fr human pathos, bathos, and Donnie's snake pants. Ask any ex-pat Nashvillian about Dickerson Road.
**Greg Garcia is one of my favorite show runners/creators. As much as that episode is classic Earl, the Cops episode that featured a night on Dickerson Road still beats it all to pieces fr human pathos, bathos, and Donnie's snake pants. Ask any ex-pat Nashvillian about Dickerson Road.