Aki Kaurismäki

7/3/03 to 7/17/03

  • Hamlet Goes Business, July 6

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  • Past
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  • Past
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Past Films

  • SHADOWS IN PARADISE

    Thursday, July 3 9:10
    A garbage truck driver, a supermarket cashier, a boat to Estonia: it's love, Kaurismäki style. The first of a mordant and touching trilogy of working-class comedies.
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  • CALAMARI UNION

    Thursday, July 3 7:30
    Seventeen outsiders-all named Frank-prowl the mean streets of Helsinki in a dry spoof of the urban gang movie. "A Dadaesque 90-minute sight-gag with film noir undertones."-Village Voice
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  • CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

    Saturday, July 5 5:00 PM
    Raskolnikov as Finnish slaughterhouse worker. "An affecting modern story that intelligently echoes Dostoyevsky's questions about guilt, responsibility, and the psychology of crime."-N.Y. Times
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  • HAMLET GOES BUSINESS

    Saturday, July 5 7:00
    Elsinore as HQ of the Finnish rubber-ducky industry. "Shakespeare isn't desecrated so much as rematerialized in gleaming black and white."-Premiere. Repeated on Sunday, July 6.
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  • HAMLET GOES BUSINESS

    Sunday, July 6 7:10
    Please see Saturday, July 5.
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  • LENINGRAD COWBOYS GO AMERICA

    Sunday, July 6 5:30
    A fantastically coiffed Finnish combo-"the worst rock 'n' roll band in the world"-hits the road across the exotic U.S.A. "The way Five Easy Pieces would have turned out had Jack Nicholson's role been played by the Three Stooges."-The Observer
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  • DRIFTING CLOUDS

    Thursday, July 10 8:50
    Economic dislocation painted in shades of blue. The moral of this touching, deadpan fable: "Life is short and miserable. Be merry while you can." Repeated on Friday, July 11.
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  • TAKE CARE OF YOUR SCARF, TATIANA

    Thursday, July 10 7:30
    Middle-aged rockers give a pair of Soviet women a lift across Finland in this characteristically oddball road movie, "a near-perfect 65-minute vignette."-Film Comment. First time in the Bay Area! Repeated on Sunday, July 13.
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  • ARIEL

    Friday, July 11 9:25
    This road movie/labor drama/prison saga "has a balladic compression and a lyricism that's both affecting and sour."-Premiere
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  • DRIFTING CLOUDS

    Friday, July 11 7:30
    Please see Thursday, July 10.
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  • I HIRED A CONTRACT KILLER

    Saturday, July 12 5:20 PM
    Jean-Pierre Léaud is too cowardly to end his own suffering, hence the film's title. Shot in a London seemingly straight out of old British thrillers, but full of absurd surprises.
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  • LA VIE DE BOHÈME

    Saturday, July 12 7:00
    This update of the novel that inspired La Bohème reveals "Kaurismäki the tender nostalgist."-Film Comment
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  • THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL

    Sunday, July 13 5:30
    This grimly funny gender parable is Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen's finest moment. "[A] beautiful, unsentimental performance...Iris is the most deeply realized and affecting character in the Finnish trilogy."-N.Y. Times
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  • TAKE CARE OF YOUR SCARF, TATIANA

    Sunday, July 13 7:00
    Please see Thursday, July 10.
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  • JUHA

    Thursday, July 17 7:30
    Kaurismäki takes his distinctive deadpan expressionism to a new level with this black-and-white silent melodrama based on a celebrated 1911 Finnish novel. "Seems inspired in equal measure by Soviet-style social realism, Buster Keaton, and Murnau's Sunrise."-Village Voice
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