LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA
Aki Kaurismäki | 1989 | Finland | 1h19m | Presented in the original Finnish and English audio with English subtitles
LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA is what happens when Aki Kaurismäki takes a hopeless Siberian rock band, gives them enormous pompadours and pointed shoes, then sends them across the United States in search of an audience.
The Leningrad Cowboys are broke, spectacularly unfashionable and apparently unwanted at home. Their manager decides America may be more forgiving, so the band heads west carrying their instruments, very little money, and the frozen body of a dead bandmate in a coffin. What follows is a road movie through New York, the American South and eventually Mexico, with the group absorbing new musical styles everywhere they go.
Kaurismäki approaches the whole thing is his usual deadpan manner. The jokes arrive without announcement. Nobody seems particularly surprised by anything, including the coffin strapped to the roof of the car. That flat delivery gives the film its particular charm, somewhere between rock documentary, absurdist comedy and affectionate parody of the American road movie.
The Leningrad Cowboys themselves began as a fictional band created around the film, but the joke outgrew the screen. The group developed a genuine international following, went on tour, recorded albums and later appeared again in Kaurismäki’s LENINGRAD COWBOYS MEET MOSES and the concert film TOTAL BALALAIKA SHOW.
The film also contains a brief appearance from Jim Jarmusch as a car dealer, which feels entirely appropriate. Kaurismäki and Jarmusch share a taste for outsiders, long silences, cheap motel rooms, dry humour and Americana road trips.
At only 79 minutes, LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA is compact, very funny and very warm. It’s one of Kaurismäki’s most accessible films, and an excellent introduction to an auteur who has spent his entire career finding comedy in people and places where no one else thinks to look.
Special thanks to Friend of FOMO and film fan Peter for recommending LENINGRAD COWBOYS for this week's film program.
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