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Leningrad Cowboys Go America
Jul. 15th, 2010 09:52 pmWe went to the Star and Shadow cinema last night to see Aki Kaurismäki's Leningrad Cowboys Go America - it's 21 years old, but somehow I've managed not to see it until now. I'm rather assuming that everyone else knows all about it already, I just wanted to put on the record that I enjoyed it very much.
No? OK, here's the Wikipedia entry, which tells you all you need to know about the plot (more, actually; all the plot you need is contained in the title, it's a road movie, there's a band called the Leningrad Cowboys, they are in America. [Oh!]*) And here's the IMDB entry, which doesn't tell you much about the movie, except that it's the kind of movie which prompts people to write IMDB reviews about how they were in the movie, because they owned a bar in which one of the Cowboys' gigs takes place (and the barber next door was played by , yup, the barber next door).
It feels like a session of tall tales: "I was in a band once, we had quiffs out to here -" "Well, I was in a band, had quiffs out to here -- and winklepickers to match." So that when one of the musicians stays out all night practising and freezes solid, the surviving members of the band transport him across America in a rough wooden crate / coffin, with holes through which his hair, the long points of his shoes and the neck of his guitar stick out.
It is astonishingly visual. Watching it, I thought of it as a picture book, in which the tall tales are triggered by a sequence of striking images: the band returning home across the tundra on a collection of tractors and trailers, the band packed - how many of them? Six or seven, plus their manager and that crate - into a Chevrolet, the band lined up on the beach (instructed by their manager to sunbathe). Afterwards I thought it would make a great comic, with the big beautiful splash pages alternating with pages of activity, in a style exaggerated just enough to be believable, never quite falling into caricature.
That would be a lovely thing - but it wouldn't have the music, which would be a serious omission, as at each new venue the Leningrad Cowbows produce a new musical style to meet local demand, and finally - no, that would be telling.
*Distracted by great sweep of peachy golden cloud glowing across my window. A Maxfield Parrish sunset.
No? OK, here's the Wikipedia entry, which tells you all you need to know about the plot (more, actually; all the plot you need is contained in the title, it's a road movie, there's a band called the Leningrad Cowboys, they are in America. [Oh!]*) And here's the IMDB entry, which doesn't tell you much about the movie, except that it's the kind of movie which prompts people to write IMDB reviews about how they were in the movie, because they owned a bar in which one of the Cowboys' gigs takes place (and the barber next door was played by , yup, the barber next door).
It feels like a session of tall tales: "I was in a band once, we had quiffs out to here -" "Well, I was in a band, had quiffs out to here -- and winklepickers to match." So that when one of the musicians stays out all night practising and freezes solid, the surviving members of the band transport him across America in a rough wooden crate / coffin, with holes through which his hair, the long points of his shoes and the neck of his guitar stick out.
It is astonishingly visual. Watching it, I thought of it as a picture book, in which the tall tales are triggered by a sequence of striking images: the band returning home across the tundra on a collection of tractors and trailers, the band packed - how many of them? Six or seven, plus their manager and that crate - into a Chevrolet, the band lined up on the beach (instructed by their manager to sunbathe). Afterwards I thought it would make a great comic, with the big beautiful splash pages alternating with pages of activity, in a style exaggerated just enough to be believable, never quite falling into caricature.
That would be a lovely thing - but it wouldn't have the music, which would be a serious omission, as at each new venue the Leningrad Cowbows produce a new musical style to meet local demand, and finally - no, that would be telling.
*Distracted by great sweep of peachy golden cloud glowing across my window. A Maxfield Parrish sunset.
