If you are of a ”discerning” enough nature to visit this website regularly, then you may have noticed that I don’t particularly like new films. The overwhelming majority of films I do like were made many, many years ago; in fact most of my favourite films were made many years before I was even born. This is largely because the years 1956 to 1980, say, serve to bookend an undisputably golden age for filmmaking; from Hitchcock and the French New Wave, through the psychedelic 60s, and up to Fassbinder and the New Hollywood. Modern films simply can’t compare.

This is not pretentious selectiveness, I assure you. It would be lovely to have some contemporary filmmakers to get excited about, but there really don’t seem to be too many out there. The 80s and 90s were also pretty strong decades in terms of cinematic golden-ness, but many of my favourite directors from those years have seemingly lost the plot of late. It was disappointing to see Jim Jarmusch, for example, contribute to the ever-growing list of midlife crisis-themed comedy dramas starring Bill Murray with the wishy-washy Broken Flowers. Lars von Trier lost me with the painfully, overly allegorical Dogville (although I have high hopes for his forthcoming Antichrist). I think we all know EXACTLY when the Coen brothers apparently lost their ample brains, charm and wit (“intolerable” doesn’t even cover it). Rushmore is one of the most strikingly intelligent, original and warm-hearted films of the last 20 years, but ever since Wes Anderson has been seemingly locked in a groove, making the same overly-stylised film about a dysfunctional family group over and over again (with Anjelica Huston invariably playing the put-upon mother figure). Terry Zwigoff’s Crumb and Ghost World both make it into my all-time Top 50 with ease, but follow-ups Bad Santa and Art School Confidential are both truly awful. I’ll admit to being quite excited about Inglorious Basterds, and I’ll reserve my final verdict on Paul Thomas Anderson, as I’ve not seen There Will Be Blood yet (all his other films are excellent, particularly the lesser-seen Hard Eight).

All of which is a rather long-winded, and possibly unnecessary, way of telling you that the only “working” directors whose films I unreservedly look forward to these days are Shane Meadows and Aki Kaurismaki. More on the brilliant Brit some other time, today I’d like to tell you how my longstanding fanatical following of the fantastic Finn began (Kaurismaki, that is, not Jari Litmanen. Or Sami Hyypia).

One sunny day in about 1995, I was reading an article about films concerning the music industry in Q magazine (I know, I know… At least it wasn’t the NME), when my eye wandered to a black and white photograph showing the coolest looking band I had ever seen; roughly eight mean ‘n’ moody looking dudes, each sporting black suits and even blacker shades, topped off with the most remarkable rhino-horn quiffs you could ever imagine. Who the hell were they? According to the article they were The Leningrad Cowboys, a Russian group with a sound staggering somewhere in between a Red Army chorus and a mariachi band. A dream combination if ever there were one! They were also, apparently, stars of their own (relatively obscure) film in which they tried to break America. Now, that I had to see.

Perhaps it’s needless to say, but I didn’t get to see it for a good while. Not until I moved to London some years later, and saw it languishing on one of the lower shelves of my local video shop. I immediately rented it and took it home, overjoyed to discover that in addition to being an intriguing, ice-cool curio, it was also an incredibly witty and imaginitive, one-of-a-kind road movie. The Leningrad Cowboys look and sound more than lived up to my long-held high expectations, and the visual gags, desert dry Finnish humour and beautifully photographed American backroads just kept on coming.

The story begins with The Leningrad Cowboys in their Siberian homeland, failing an audition with a local Soviet impresario. “Go to America”, he tells them, “They’ll swallow any shit there”. So, off to America they go, but not before turfing out one of their own number who dared to shave off his gargantuan quiff, his place being taken by their dead bassist in an ice-packed coffin. Hitting the USA, they fail a few more auditions, hone their sound to incorporate rock ‘n’ roll and country, and even find a new singer in the shape of their long-lost cousin (played by Members frontman, Nicky Tesco; you know, ‘The Sound of the Suburbs’). None other than Jim Jarmusch (back when he was still good. Sorry) turns up for a cameo as a crooked car dealer, and if the whole thing sounds a bit chaotic and episodic, that’s because it is. Fear not, though, Aki Kaurismaki is far too talented to let the whole escapade snowball into a one-joke film, and Leningrad Cowboys Go America is cool, crazy and creative enough to hold your attention and imagination for the entire trip. It’s easily one of my favourite films of all time, and it’s not even Kaurismaki at the top of his game!

In the long run the best thing that came out of me finally seeing Leningrad Cowboys was that it inspired me to seek out more Kaurismaki films. I had been initially surprised to learn that the group were Finnish and not really Russian with, according to some Finns I have known, much of the humour derived from the long-standing bitterness felt by the Scandinavian country towards it’s vastly larger neighbour (don’t worry, though, the gags are so good we can all enjoy them. What’s funnier than the manager of a touring Russian band entering a US record store and asking “Do you have rock ‘n’ roll? Can I buy it?”). I was also surprised to discover they weren’t a real group (although they later became one, confusingly), and were in fact the brain-child of Kaurismaki himself, who I was again surprised to learn was a highly-regarded director of many credits. Of course, I had absolutely loved Leningrad Cowboys Go America, it’s just that directors of crazy, faux-Soviet rock ‘n’ roll films don’t tend to have the opportunity to make too many films besides.

How wrong I was! Aki Kaurismaki is a national treasure in Finland, and should be more widely known everywhere else, too. While others bemoan lack of breaks, funding etc., Kaurismaki has managed to turn in a modestly budgeted masterpiece in a relative cinematic backwater every year, or thereabouts, since his debut in 1983 (a cracking neo-noir adaptation of Crime and Punishment, no less). There are too many highlights in his filmography to mention, and he’s never made a film that’s less than brilliant. Moreover, he seems to keep getting better in many respects, and his most recent films are among his very finest and best received (The Man Without a Past won the Grand Prix at Cannes in 2002, not that anyone noticed). He also deserves props for never straying from Finland, and for not using indie success as a springboard to making lucrative mainstream films for the big studios. One gets the feeling that Kaurismaki will continue making films of the same high-quality and low-budget forever, as well he should. If more modern directors could learn the same trick, I’d have more reason to visit the cinema than I do now.

Here’s to you, Aki Kaurismaki, and The Leningrad Cowboys, who are going to play us out with a (literally) barnstorming rendition of the Soviet classic, Polyushka. Check out the full film as soon as you can, comrades!

Tags aki kaurismaki film of the day leningrad cowboys leningrad cowboys go america