If you thought Spinal Tap was an eccentric rock band, wait until you lay eyes on the Leningrad Cowboys. Created by director Aki Kaurismäki for a series of music videos, the fictional rock band with the exaggerated pompadour mullet hairstyles and pointed clown shoes gained an enthusiastic following which led to two farcical music-based films and a legitimate rock concert. In this latest Eclipse release, all three of the Leningrad Cowboys movies are collected in one package along with the five music videos attributed to the band. As films, the comedy is hit and miss (mostly miss in the second film), but the music is the salvation of the fictional films, and the concert is very entertaining indeed.
Aki Kaurismäki’s Leningrad Cowboys: Eclipse Series 29
Leningrad Cowboys Go America/Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses/Total Balalaika Show
Directed by Aki Kaurismäki
Studio: Criterion/Eclipse
Year: 1989-1994
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1/1.66:1
Running Time: 230 minutes
Rating: NR
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo/surround Finnish, English
Subtitles: English
MSRP: $44.95
Release Date: October 18, 2011
Review Date: October 18, 2011
The Films
Leningrad Cowboys Go America – 3.5/5
An eccentric band of Siberian musicians is having a difficult time being booked in their homeland, but their manager (Matti Pellonpää) is advised to take the group to America because “they buy everything.” Upon arriving at the club who’s hired them in New York, however, the owner hears their music (which wouldn’t be out of place on The Lawrence Welk Show) and suggests that a booking in Mexico might be more their speed. In order to get there, they must play a series of club dates on the road which takes them through Nashville, New Orleans, Galveston, and Houston before arriving south of the border.
The band of eight really play deadpan throughout the film, registering nothing despite a raft of reactions ranging from indifference (Nashville) to wild enthusiasm (a biker bar in Houston where after their first bland number, they launch into “Born to Be Wild”). After they get hip to what rock ‘n roll is, the tunes pour out of them: “Rock’n’ Roll Is Here to Stay,” “Tequila,” “That’s All Right,” “Chasin’ the Light.” The music is toe-tapping and the boys are entertaining which makes many of the stale jokes and barely workmanlike set pieces (a funeral procession in New Orleans followed by five nights in jail) bearable. Kaurismäki has the boys’ manager take advantage of them until they finally wise up and mutiny, and he keeps a running gag going with moronic Igor (Kari Väänänen) who wants desperately to be in the group and follows them across the country (very silly but occasionally humorous). Unlike the inspired, individualistic improvisational comedians who made up Spinal Tap, the band members here really have no separate identities, so the group succeeds or fails en masse and the ratio of good to bad is only about 50%. Music saves the day here.
Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses – 2/5
Five years of success in Mexico does a number on the Leningrad Cowboys as they succumb to the temptations of tequila and lose everything. A potential job offer at New York’s Coney Island brings the group (now reduced to five) back to America where they’re reunited with their previous charlatan of a manager Vladimir (Matti Pellonpää) who’s undergone a religious transformation and now believes himself Moses who must return his flock to Russia. Thus, the Cowboys take another long road trip, this time across the face of a much-changed Europe through France, Germany, Leipzig, Poland, and eventually home. Because Moses steals the nose of the Statue of Liberty before he leaves the United States, he’s hunted throughout their travels by CIA man Johnson (André Wilms) who eventually undergoes his own transformation and becomes Elijah.
All of the charm of the original conception of this misfit group has completely dissipated between the first film and this one. Though the film is twenty minutes longer, it’s about one hundred times less funny and apart from a couple of sight gags early on (a gun belt holding mini-bottles of liquor, a cowboy hat cut to accommodate the spiky pompadour), it's not funny at all and has a rather desperate air about it. None of the comic set pieces like the business with Miss Liberty’s stolen nose work at all, and some feeble allusions to The Ten Commandments are even more of a misfire. Unlike the original movie, we get no local color or sense of place in the many cities where they perform. Even worse, apart from a couple of tunes like “By the River of Babylon” and especially “Child of Night,” the music doesn’t make the movie nearly worth the effort. It’s an almost complete comedy miscarriage from beginning to end. Amazing that after this fiasco, the Cowboys were still able to tour to continuing enthusiastic crowds.
Total Balalaika Show – 4/5
The Leningrad Cowboys are joined on stage at Helsinki’s Senate Square in 1993 by the Alexandrov Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble in a series of musical performances which mix rock ‘n roll, country, and folk music with the classical bent of the inspiring (and huge) Red Army Chorus. Among the numbers are "Finlandia," “Let’s Work Together,” “Delilah,” “Sweet Home Alabama,” “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” “Kalinka,” “Dark Eyes,” “Happy Together,” and the rousing, climactic “Those Were the Days.”
While Aki Kaurismaki’s direction is rather staid and prosaic for a concert film (the audience numbers 70,000), the routine close-ups, medium shots, and long shots do allow the viewer to see everything available to be presented (some songs in the concert had clearance rights and are not a part of the film) and does capture at least some of the audience’s frenzied enthusiasm for the oddball musicians. Strangely, what would appear to be an incongruous pairing of the staid military chorus and the peculiar rock band actually works well in tandem making for a very entertaining concert presentation.
Video Quality
All films – 3.5 5
The two fictional films are presented at their theatrical aspect ratios of 1.85:1. The concert film is presented at 1.66:1. All have been anamorphically enhanced for widescreen televisions. Sharpness is the inconsistent factor in the transfers of the first and last films with the encodes often looking very film-like but occasionally blurry and indistinct. Black levels are better than one might expect, and color is pleasing with accurate flesh tones. There are some dust specks to be seen and an occasional splotch, but these random flaws only take the viewer out of the film for a moment. Meet Moses looks the best of the three but it’s marred by an unmistakable vertical stripe down the left side of the frame for about fifteen minutes of the movie’s second half. The films have been divided into 20, 13, and 11 chapters respectively. Subtitles are in white and are always easy to read.
Audio Quality
All films – 4/5
The two fiction films have Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo surround encodes while the concert film has a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track. All of the dialogue and the lead vocals in the songs come across quite well in the center channel, and the music, while sometimes carrying a bit of distortion, fills the room with sound and usually is most enjoyable.
Special Features
2/5
Each of the three discs in the set offer interesting and informative liner notes by critic Michael Koresky.
The group’s five music videos are all offered on disc three in the set. The videos are “Rocky VI” (9 minutes), “Thru the Wire” (6 minutes), “L.A. Woman” (5 minutes), “Those Were the Days” (5 minutes), and “These Boots Are Made for Walkin’” (5 minutes). The liner notes explain the significance of the images in the videos.
In Conclusion
3.5/5 (not an average)
The music is the savior of this package which features otherwise two comedy films which are up and down in quality and a concert film which is most enjoyable. Aki Kaurismaki’s Leningrad Cowboys won’t be for all tastes, but what’s funny is very funny, and the music (even the corny polka stuff) is a tonic.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
