Total Balalaika Show

Total Balalaika Show. Mikhail Mozalin (The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble) and Jore Marjaranta (Leningrad Cowboys) sing "Happy Together".

FI 1993. PC: Sputnik Oy. D: Aki Kaurismäki. Featuring: The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble and Leningrad Cowboys. Full credits and song list: see my blog note 8 Dec 2010.
    Digital transfer supervised by Aki Kaurismäki in 2014.
    2K DCP viewed at Filmmuseum München, 30 Jan 2020

AA: In today's screening we see two films by Aki Kaurismäki in which he comes closest to making a straight record.

When Mika and Aki Kaurismäki emerged into the Finnish film scene in 1980 there had been an empty period after the death of Risto Jarva in 1977. The brothers cultivated close relations with the new wave Suomi rock music scene, artists such as Sielun Veljet, Eppu Normaali, Juice Leskinen, Rauli Somerjoki und Tuomari Nurmio. They connected in young, irreverent energy.

Aki established a special connection with the comedy rock band Sleepy Sleepers. He directed their short music film Rocky VI where Igor (Sakari Kuosmanen) beats Rocky (Silu Seppälä). In Aki's subsequent music shorts the band transformed into Leningrad Cowboys.

Total Balalaika Show is a document of the concert of Leningrad Cowboys and The Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble on the Helsinki Senate Square, in the monument centre, in front of the Cathedral, on 12 June 1993 not long after the fall of the Soviet Union in December 1991. It was one of the outstanding events celebrating the Fall of the Wall, our counterpart to Roger Waters's The Wall Live in Berlin (1990).

Aki, accustomed to shoot with one camera only, now had four Super 16 cameras at his disposal and a top team of cinematographers (see my previous blog note on this movie).

"The worst rock band" meets one of the best choirs in the world. Anarchy meets discipline. A goofy joke turns serious. Madness became reality.

Chris Marker called this movie "a milestone of post-modern kitsch", a snapshot after the fall of the Brezhnev empire. American film magazines wrote about "the irony curtain". A parody of cold war and iron curtain stereotypes had been a constant in the trajectory of Sleepy Sleepers / Leningrad Cowboys.

A remark about the song selections. The Red Army choir gave their first performance in Finland in 1945, after Finland had lost the war against the USSR and switched to the Allies. The choir arrangement of "Finlandia" by Jean Sibelius was the opening number of the Red Army choir in 1945, ideal for breaking the ice. "Kalinka", the Russian traditional, features prominently in the most popular Finnish film of all, The Unknown Soldier: the soldiers confiscate a Red Army choir record of "Kalinka" as war loot, and it becomes popular among them. "Happy Together" and "Those Were the Days" gain a special meaning in this concert.

Total Balalaika Show is a farewell concert to the iron curtain.

A parody of "peaceful coexistence" now turned into reality.

A big laugh at the paradoxes of the cold war.

The handshake is a key image in Aki Kaurismäki's films. Total Balalaika Show is a film about an epic handshake.

(Based on my introduction to the film).

...

PS. Cinema screenings of this movie are rare at least in Finland (it is mostly being seen in home formats, television, and online services). It was very rewarding to see this film again on the screen. The epic scope of the event can be fully conveyed only in a cinema experience. It keeps growing. The Cold War was a terrible time. The feeling of relief was deep when it ended, and this happy moment is documented here.

Jörn Donner died today, and in Facebook Messenger after the show I got in touch among others with Mauri Sumén who arranged the songs of the film. He told that Leningrad Cowboys were deeply shocked and sent their condolences to the Red Army Choir after their horrible airplane disaster in 2016 in which 64 key choir members died. He told also that Total Balalaika Show was widely circulated in Russia in memorials of the catastrophe. Sumén also mentioned that many of the best music numbers had to be left out of the film for copyright reasons.