Viimeiset rotannahat / [The Last Rat Skins] / Rare, Medium, Well Done

Viimeiset rotannahat. Impressio / De sista skinnena. FI (c) 1985 Filmiauer. P+D+SC: Anssi Mänttäri. DP: Heikki Katajisto - 1,66:1 - colour and b&w - lab: Johan Ankerstjerne. M: "Bad Morning Blues" (comp. Anssi Mänttäri, arr. Asko Mänttäri), "Uni tulee, uni tulee" (trad.) pres. A. Köster (voc) and Kollage. "Best With Beer" (Asko Mänttäri). CAST: Anssi Mänttäri (the man in the white suit), Sarina Röhr (the woman with a sound sleep), Taina Saikkonen (young intellectual woman), Riitta Havukainen (lecturer in semiotics), Eero Tuomikoski (Nuutinen, drunk CEO), Sanna-Kaisa Palo (Irma Manner, the woman who never stops talking), Aki Kaurismäki (Ville, son of the man in the white suit), Sallamaari Muhonen (Redhead), Marja Packalén (the ex-wife of the man in the white suit), Matti Pellonpää (father of the man in the white suit), Elina Hurme (Kaisa, the young moralistic woman), Eeva Eloranta (female theologist), Heikki Peltonen (male theologist), Ilkka Kylävaara (Väisänen, successful businessman), Titta Antti-Poika (Tiina, the woman with the car), Erkki Saarela (Pera, the good-natured man), Paavo Piskonen (Harri, the conceited man), Kristiina Repo (Seija Pikkaranen, the woman who hates poverty), Pirkko Hämäläinen (Riitta, the bitchy woman), Jyrki Kovaleff (the honest working man), Sanna Fransman (the woman next door), Kari Väänänen (psychiatrist), Ann-Cathrine Fröjdö (not just a skin). Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 3 June 2009.

The image in the print varied from good to grainy. - A fascinating Bukowskian odyssey starring the director himself as the man in the white suit, who conquers almost any woman in a series of superficial relationships. With witty dialogue, the film is constantly interesting, and with a hidden despair beneath. - The framing story reveals the burned-out old man giving his account to a video camera. The white suit is now folded on the chair. - It is a satire on a life based on easy gratification, short attention span, self-centeredness, about always taking the easy way out. - This film was not a success at its time, but it has stood the test of time well. There is not a dull moment in it.

Apinan vuosi

Apans år / In the Year of the Ape. FI 1983. PC: Elokuvatuottajat Oy. P: Claes Olsson, Matti Penttilä. D: Janne Kuusi. SC: Harri Sirola, Janne Kuusi – based on the novel Abiturientti (1980) by Sirola. DP: Tahvo Hirvonen - colour - 1:1,66. AD: Erkki Saarainen. COST: Irmeli Toivanen. M: Pekka Rechardt. ED: Anne Lakanen. S: Mikael Sievers. CAST: Heikki Salomaa (Ile), Tiina Bergström (Suvi), Laura Heimo (Tanja), Rea Mauranen (Maria, the Finnish teacher), Elina Hurme (Sara, the girl in a leather jacket), Ilpo Kotanen (Klasu), Kari Väänänen (Rene), Heidi Krohn (Ile's mother), Aarre Karén (Ile's father), Marja-Leena Kouki (Suvi's mother), Esko Salminen (Suvi's father), Hanna Marttila (Suvi's friend), Ritva Sorvali (laughing woman), Markku Halme, Konsta Mäkelä, Ritva Rantasila (classmates), Kari Paukkunen (psychology teacher), Eero Tuomikoski (janitor), Jussi Parviainen, Tomi Salmela, Tapio Liinoja, Pekka Uotila, Seppo Luukkanen (Rene's henchmen), Timo Eränkö (De Sade), Paul Pentti (Marat), Aki Kaurismäki (Charlotte Corday), the Jack Helen Brut group. 94 min. A vintage print screened at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 29 Oct 2008. In the presence of Janne Kuusi hosted by Markku Varjola. - MV: the first Finnish surrealistic feature film. - JK: We were on terms with surrealism but tried to avoid aping. Initially planned as a tv movie it became a cinema film. We aimed at cinematic expression. There was in Finland a theatrical tradition and a literary tradition; we wanted to do cinema. The visual outlook is very distinctive. Heikki Salomaa got the lead role, soon to become well-known in the Lapinlahden Linnut team. The soundscape was also very ambitious. The film was the diploma work for Kuusi, Hirvonen, Lakanen, Sievers. - This is the story of the "abiturientti" (candidate for the matriculation examination, graduating senior, preparatory student, upper-secondary school leaver) who is at the threshold of becoming an "ylioppilas" (student, undergraduate, upper secondary school-leaver), qualified to apply for admission to a university. These are the months of transition to adulthood. - Janne Kuusi and Harri Sirola turned Sirola's novel around and created a surrealistic vision. Ile, the young man, wants to apply for admission to the medical faculty. The "ylioppilaskirjoitukset" (the student exam, the written examination for higher certificate) are under way, but there is also partying and meeting girls. Ile is aimless in his relationships. There is the lovely and playful Suvi (Tiina Bergström), there is the dark, hard-to-get Tanja (Laura Heimo), there is the strongly personal Sara, the girl in the leather jacket (Elina Hurme), and even the striking Maria, the Finnish teacher (Rea Mauranen). Maria's boyfriend is the violent Rene (Kari Väänänen), and through him there is a criminal gang element in the story. There is no clear line between dream and reality in the film, though. The "lakkiaisjuhla" (the private party of passing the student exam and getting the white student cap) is a big baroque banquet with scantily clad nymphs on horseback and a living Havis Amanda (the famous nude statue at Helsinki's Market Square, the Venus of Finland) (from the long shot it is difficult to see whether the live Havis Amanda is Tiina Bergström). The mounted nymphs take Ile with them and throw him to the basin at the statue Havis Amanda's fountain (the traditional place where students celebrate the First of May).

Neljä miljardia silmänräpäystä

Fyra miljarder ögonblick / [Four Billion Blinks of an Eye]. FI 1980. First transmitted in 1981. PC: Yleisradio TV2 Teatteritoimitus. P+D+ED: Jaakko Pyhälä. SC: Jukka Asikainen, Antti Hytti, Jaakko Pyhälä. CIN: Kalervo Katajavuori, Jaakko Pyhälä, Tahvo Hirvonen - 16mm - colour - Eastmancolor 7247. M: Antti Hytti. Performed by: Juhani Aaltonen (flute), Toni Edelmann (piano, organ), Esko Heikkinen (trumpet), Antti Hytti (bass, piano, vocals, synthetizator), Jarmo Korhonen (bassoon), Esa-Pekka Salonen, Tero Sarikoski (percussions), Jone Takamäki (tenor sax), Hasse Walli (guitar), Veli-Pekka Bister, Sirpa Juvonen, Vesa Raiskinen, Pirkko Vartiainen (string quartet). With Kari Väänänen, Eila Halonen, Pirkko Koskenniemi, Tauno Lehtihalmes, Raimo O. Niemi, Raila Leppäkoski, Jaakko Talaskivi, Markku Toikka, Timo Torikka, Pekka Ojamaa, Ari Piispa, Jukka Asikainen, Arto af Hällström, Pertti Lumirae, Heikki-Tapio Partanen, Eero Tuomikoski, Kari Paukkunen, Petri Aalto, Pentti Asikainen, Pekka Bogel, Matti Kuortti, Kyösti Mankamo, Markku Laakso, Jami Laine, Helena Luukkonen, Lotta Myllymäki, Ari Rauhanen, Sari Rauhanen, Lyyli Kauhanen, Ida Kurki, Heidi Pirkola, Aune Toivonen, Ritva Torvinen, Mari Ahola, Minna Ahola, Dina Enberg, Raimo Holmgren, Kira Kaipiainen, Timo Laakkonen, Petri Kaipiainen, Kalle Kultala. 74 min. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 15 October, 2008. - A bad, faded 16mm print of 72 min. - An essay film about photography. A film of Godardian inspiration, totally original. - Starts with a quotation from Kafka. - Chinese delegation in Finland. - Photography is an intrusion to privacy. - A funeral: each journey to eternity is immortalized. In each funeral there is always somebody whom nobody knows. - Kari Väänänen as a mumbling, confused, slacker kind of guy in his debut film, even spaced out. His task: to organize the archives of a photographer who has committed suicide. - The Laterna Magica. - Early cinema (Lumière: Debarquement du Congrès des photographes à Lyon), at overspeed. - Väänänen's girlfriend in beautiful nude scenes. - A parodic tv panel. Väänänen's day work as an assistent at a tv studio. Documentary value in the tv segment. - I could not confess to anyone that I did not understand anything. I dreamt that I was late and arrived at an empty stadium. - The National Museum: it is not allowed to have a conversation with the museum objects. - The piano has already been taken. - The cry of the crow. - Gavrilo Princip and the role of the photographer in WWI. The clown of history. Four billion blinks of an eye. The fleeting moment as the image of eternity. Behave or I'll photograph you out of history. A break of the information flow for half a year. The books of the Alexandria library were used to heat baths. - A bear looks clumsy but it's fast and strong. - The death of a tv journalist. A rainy night. The images of the magic lantern of an angel and grief at the grave. - Interesting montages. Interesting music, from modern concert music to jazz. - Lively discussion about the film after the show, this film would deserve to be made better available.

Jon

Jon / Jon. FI (c) 1983 Tambur Film. P+D+ED: Jaakko Pyhälä. SC: JP, Heikki Vuento. DP: Pertti Mutanen - colour: Agfa-Gevaert - Technovision 1:2,35. M: Antti Hytti. Sound: Paul Jyrälä, Matti Kuortti - Dolby Stereo. Starring Kari Väänänen (Jon), Vesa-Matti Loiri (Öljys-Heikki), Pia-Beate Tellefsen (Gunilla), Anne-Beate Odland (Susanne de Wrees, film producer-director), Vesa Vierikko (Dietmar), Helena Lindgren (waitress). 127 min. In Finnish, partly in Swedish and Norwegian with Finnish subtitles. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 14 September 2008. - In the presence of Matti Kuortti, interviewed by Markku Varjola. MK told about the extreme conditions of film-making in the Far North in the autumn storms, with hail raining upwards the hill, the ferry line precarious to the island of Vuoreija / Vardö. The Technovision equipment was heavy, the scope format was the sound engineer's dream, this was the second or third film in Finland in Dolby Stereo. Loiri stayed in costume also outside the shooting, and he surprised the local yuppies with his skill at pool. They never got to enter the game. - The print did justice to one of the best examples of cinematography in Finnish cinema, with the haunting light of Lapland, shot by the Barents Sea, Nordkap. There is a pleasant warmth in the sunlight. - I saw this film for the first time. Visually it's striking and original, it has a true vision, and there are several strong and memorable visual ideas to the sequences. The bar, the art exhibition, the escape in the rain, the Hakaniemi square, the military exercises in the fog, Ivalo, the Barents Sea, the Island of Vardö. - The brilliant images keep coming, but the film is going nowhere. - This is one of the Finnish films (the first?) where a large vintage white Cadillac convertible serves as the escape vehicle. - Conceived first as an "account of the end of the world", and subsequently as "a young man's odyssey" it displays strong visual talent but the basic feeling is confused. - Kari Väänänen as the chaotic Jon has a tough anti-hero attitude. No nice guy, he beats women, is rude, his speech is ugly. He has the makings of a gangster. Yet he protects a child from her mother, and in women he attracts sympathy that he does not deserve. - The main content of the protagonists' lives is wandering, drinking and fighting. There are gunfights, and finally the gangsters on Dietmar's trail find him. Jon survives. - The women are attractive, their parts underwritten. - Although set in the cod fishing milieu, there is little sense of fishing and the industry linked with it.

Arkiston aarteet 2008 4: Tampere naisten kaupunki 2 / [Treasures from the Archive 2008 4: Tampere, the City of Women 2]

Skatter ur arkivet 2008 4: Tammerfors, kvinnornas stad 2. Compiled for Tampere Film Festival 2008 by Raimo Silius and Lauri Tykkyläinen. Viewed at Cinema Orion, Helsinki, 6 August 2008.
Talvista muotia Tampereella. [Winter Fashions in Tampere]. FI 1955. ca 9 min. - Armi Kuusela and Gil Hilario in the grip of blatant product placement.
Välähdyksiä Miss Eurooppa -kilpailuista Helsingissä. [Glimpses of the Miss Europa Contest in Helsinki].
Ajan Kuvastin 42 - Miss Suomi kilpailut 1958. [Ajan Kuvastin 42 - Miss Suomi Contest 1958]. FI 1958. 11 min. Ironic commentary written by Jukka Virtanen read by Mai-Brit Heljo and Mauno Hyvönen. Starring Pirkko Mannola at 19.
Tampere tekstiilejä tekee. [Tampere at Work with Textiles]. FI 1958. D: Allan Pyykkö. 8 min. Tampere here the big center of textile industry, with Finlayson, Lapinniemi, Klingendahl, Suomen Trikoo, and PMK. Colour faded in the print seen.
Kolmen kaupungin kasvot: Tampere. [The Faces of Three Cities: Tampere]. FI 1962. PC: Suomi-Filmi. D: Matti Kassila. The Tampere episode 30 min. This is an interesting documentary essay with focus on industry, the theatre and literature. Memorable glimpses of The Unknown Soldier at the Pyynikki Summer Theatre, views of Mikko Mäkelä, Eino Salmelainen, and Väinö Linna.
Balladi Sallista. [The Ballad of Salli]. FI 1982. PC: Elovalkia. D+SC+ED: Hannu Peltomaa. Based on the poem "Surullinen laulu Ronganojan Sallista" by Viljo Kajava, composed by Harri Tuominen. Starring Eeva-Riitta Salo and Kari Väänänen, sung by Monna Kamu and Pekka Aarnio. 24 min. Strong atmosphere of the beginning of the 20th century in the workers' district Kyttälä.