Total Balalaika Show

Aki Kaurismäki’s film of the Leningrad Cowboys’ massive concert in Helsinki’s Senate Square with the 150-member Alexandrov Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble is a loving tribute to the rock band he made famous. Seventy thousand people turned out for this megaspectacle; featuring musical selections from Sibelius to Bob Dylan, it crossed genre and national divides. Also included on this disc are the Leningrad Cowboys music videos “Rocky VI,” “Thru the Wire,” “L.A. Woman,” “Those Were the Days,” and “These Boots.”

Finland
1994
57 minutes
Color
1.66:1
English, Russian

Available In

Collector's Set

Aki Kaurismäki’s Leningrad Cowboys

DVD Box Set

3 Discs

$31.46

Cast & Credits

Cast

The Alexandrov Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble
Twist-Twist Erkinharju: The Leningrad Cowboys
Ben Granfelt
Sakke Järvenpää
Jore Marjaranta
Ekke Niiva
Pemo Ojala
Silu Seppälä
Mauri Sumén
Mato Valtonen

Credits

Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Assistant director: Erkki Astala
Cinematography: Heikki Ortamo
Editing: Timo Linnasalo
Sound: Jouko Lumme

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Explore

Aki Kaurismäki

Director

Even if he weren’t the world’s most famous Finnish filmmaker, Aki Kaurismäki’s singular place in cinema would be ensured by his distinctive and effortless mix of scalpel-sharp comedy, pitch-dark (The Match Factory Girl) or slapstick (Leningrad Cowboys Go America), with warm humanism. He started working in movies as his older brother Mika’s codirector, then struck out on his own with an adaptation of Crime and Punishment (1983). With his Proletariat Trilogy—Shadows in Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988), and The Match Factory Girl (1990), which find humor or romance in even the most desperate situations—and his zany musical comedies starring the fictional band the Leningrad Cowboys, Kaurismäki became a beloved figure in international film circles. The sardonic inventiveness of the former and the unexpected hipster hilarity of the latter confirmed him as an uncommon master, and his influence has been felt in works by the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson. Kaurismäki has continued to delight audiences with such films as the Oscar-nominated The Man Without a Past (2003) and Le Havre (2011), which evince his social commitment as well as his fluency in visual storytelling.

Read Kaurismäki’s Top 10.