Aki Kaurismäki

Director

“Cinema is dead. It died 1962, I think it was in October!”

Biography

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific film-makers, and together have been responsible for one-fifth of the total output of the Finnish film industry since the early 1980s, though Aki’s work has found more favour abroad. His films are very short (he says a film should never run longer than 90 minutes, and many of his films are nearer 70), eccentric parodies of various genres (road movies, film noir, rock musicals), populated by lugubrious hard-drinking Finns and set to eclectic soundtracks, typically based around ‘50s rock’n’roll.

In the 1990s he has made films in Britain (I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)) and France (La vie de bohème (1992)). —IMDb

Films on MUBI

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jeffreyreeser

27Nov11

whats a good one of his films to start with? he looks awesome

McSmith likes this

Eloi MV

4Dec11

Shadows in Paradise is a sure bet. You can then follow with Ariel and The Match Factory Girl, all available through an eclipse set and a perfect place to start.
McSmith

27Dec11

I agree with ELOI MV that the Eclipse set is a really accessible way to get into his stuff, and Ariel or Shadows in Paradise are a good place to start. After that, if you liked the goofy comedy aspects, try the Leningrad Cowboys, but if the bleakness resonated more, then maybe Tatjana.