Aki Kaurismaki - The Leningrad Cowboys Collection

Star Review

Somewhere in a barn on the Siberian tundra, the Leningrad Cowboys, outrageously bequiffed and winklepickered, are playing their trademark blend of rock ‘n’ polka to impress a promoter. They finish and wait in silence for his verdict. ‘You’re shit’ he says, ‘go to America, they’ll put up with anything there.’ Which they do, frozen former band member and village idiot in tow, to conquer the continent, which they don’t.
Kaurismaki’s deadpan humour is much in evidence in the first two films about the band created for his films. The last in the collection, Total Balalaika Show, sees the Cowboys (motto: Make Tractors, not War) play a concert with the Alexandrov Red Army Ensemble in front of 70,000 people in Helsinki. With songs such as Happy Together, Delilah, The Volga Boat Song and Those Were the Days in the set, you just need to sit back and enjoy its glorious and hugely entertaining improbability.

Graeme Hobbs on 17th October 2007

View all 228 of Graeme Hobbs’s reviews

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Film Description

Features Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989), in which a bequiffed and winklepickered group of Finnish musicians go to America to seek fame and fortune, the sequel, Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1994) and Total Balalaika Show (1994), in which the Leningrad Cowboys perform at a concert in Helsinki along with the Alexandrov Red Army Choir and Ballet.

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Related Special Offers

• World Cinema Winter Warmers

DVD Extras

• 3 discs. Kaurismaki biography
• 5 short films by Kaurosmaki featuring Leningrad Cowboys.

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Technical Details