Just saw this movie on DVD. I loved the blend of deadpan, ironic humor with unmistakable compassion. Apparently that's a trademark of the filmmaker, Finland's Aki Kaurismaki. I really need to see more of his work. "Leningrad Cowboys Go to America" is his most well-known film here, but I always thought it looked pretty stupid, what with those hairdos and all. I sure wish I would have seen "Man" sooner, because the NW Film Center has had a retrospective going since mid-November.
Brian's books
More writing from Brian Libby
- Award-winning Portland firm Linden, Brown’s buildings balance bold sculptural forms and an open-minded, inclusive process (Portland Tribune, May 2023)
- Restaurants, clinics, bridges — and awards: Portland's Fieldwork Design and Architecture reminds us experience isn't everything (Portland Tribune, July 2023)
- Cut My Timber and the ups and downs of market transformation (Portland Tribune, July 2023)
- New PDX terminal is already the landmark Portland needs (Portland Tribune, August 2023)
- Jumping Into ADUs: Webster Wilson designs small homes with often soaring presence (Portland Tribune, September 2023)
- The Tomorrow Theater, and a neighborhood today (Portland Tribune, October 2023)
- Before & After: This Reinvented Monterey Bungalow Shows That Sometimes, Smaller Is Better (Dwell, June 2023)
- Budget Breakdown: Two Retired Teachers Build Oregon’s First All-CLT House for $591K (Dwell, June 2023)
- Budget Breakdown: They DIYed a $212K ADU—and Loved It So Much That They Moved Right In (Dwell, July 2023)
- This L.A. Home Hides a Second Story Beneath Its Steeply Pitched Roof (Dwell, August 2023)
- The Coolest Indoor Tree House Is Tucked Away in This Stately Tudor (Dwell, September 2023)
- A California Retreat Has Walls Made Out of the Beach (Dwell, September 2023)
- Before & After: They Loved Their Cozy Cottage, So They a Built an Annex to Match (Dwell, November 2023)
- He Only Built One Home—So They Gave It a Singular Renovation (Dwell, November 2023)
- Near Joshua Tree, a Sublime Desert Home Embraces Shadows and Sunlight (Dwell, November 2023)
- Before & After: A Couple Fix Up an Heirloom Cottage in the Town Where They First Met (Dwell, April 2023)
- What Does It Take to #VanLife as a Family? (Dwell, May 2023)
- A Floating Living Room Sets a Family’s Lake Michigan Cottage Apart From the Rest (Dwell, May 2023)
- Thomas Hacker's tree of influence (Portland Tribune, May 2023)
- Urban forestry's moment (Portland Tribune, April 2023)
- Slabtown and the medium-density model (Portland Tribune, March 2023)
- The Japanese Garden's Circle of Art (Oregon ArtsWatch, January 2023)
- Purposely taking the alley way (Portland Tribune, February 2023)
- Mourning one lost landmark, rejoicing in another (Portland Tribune, January 2023)
- The Not-So-Distant Shore (Portland Tribune, December 2022)
- Mississippi and the state of the in-person office (Portland Tribune, November 2022)
- After Two Moves and a Year in Pieces, the Renovated Avalon House Represents a Childhood Memory Brought Back to Life (Retrofit, January 2023)
- Budget Breakdown: A Woodworker Couple Make $10K Go the Distance Renovating a 2006 Camper (Dwell, February 2023)
- Budget Breakdown: An Indiana Couple Hand-Build the Farmhouse of Their Dreams for $166K (Dwell, March 2023)
- Trees: A Powerful Tool to Fight Climate Change (Elemental Green, March 2023)
- This Overhauled Airstream Feels Less Like a Trailer and More Like a House (Dwell, December 2022)
- Sky Hopinka: poet of Indigenous cinema (Oregon ArtsWatch, November 2022)
- Mario Ciampi’s Former Berkeley Art Museum Is Reborn as a Life-sciences Incubator (Retrofit, November 2022)
- A New Book Explores the Architecture of Alfred Hitchcock (Metropolis, November 2022)
- Reviving the tale of a musical 'Lost Angel' (Oregon ArtsWatch, November 2022)
- Budget Breakdown: An Architect DIYs a Luminous Work Shed for $10K (Dwell, November 2022)
- 100 Runs, A Pedestal and Transformation (Drain, October 2022)
- Budget Breakdown: An Architect Builds an Experimental Garden Studio for Less Than £5K (Dwell, October 2022)
- Before & After: An Architect Levels Up His Tiny Seattle Cottage With a Soaring Skylight (Dwell, October 2022)
- Keller Auditorium: Renovate or Replace? (Oregon ArtsWatch, September 2022)
Brian's Films
- Above & Beyond
- Across the Sound
- Avenue & Interstate
- Battersea to Chelsea
- Chinese Junket
- Creamery Birds
- Crossings
- Demolition of the Rosefriend Apartments
- Fobidden City Rewind
- Go For That
- Golden Bends
- Hello Nassau
- Isle of Staten
- Kerra Skola
- Kyoto Diner
- Ocean Way
- PDX-LAX
- Portland Project #1
- Range of Motion
- Roppongi Crossing
- Route 23
- Seagulls and Waves
- Shinkanzen Corridor
- Snow Day
- Super Terrific Shinjuku
- Swift Landing
- The Falls
- Tianjin Highway
- Tsukiji 5AM
- Washington-Monroe
- Web Swingers
- Western Travelogue #1
- Western Travelogue #2
Recent Posts
- 2011 in review
- Beryl Markham's "West With the Night"
- Edward Dmytryk's "Crossfire"
- Lonnie Johnson's "Four Hands Are Better Than Two"
- Top 25 college football programs of the decade
- Favorite films of the decade
- We are (currently) the champions: Oregon's place in Pac-10 history
- Watching Shmoo and Captain Caveman
- Somebody else's tweets
- Oregon Ducks on the cover of Sports Illustrated!!!
Categories
- Architecture (1)
- Blazers (10)
- Books (4)
- Brian's film & video (8)
- Cars (2)
- Ducks (15)
- Film (29)
- Food and Drink (9)
- Friends (6)
- Health (3)
- History (1)
- Living (2)
- Miscellaneous (6)
- Movies (1)
- Music (31)
- Personal History (76)
- Photos (12)
- Politics (11)
- Sara (4)
- Sports (14)
- Television (19)
- Travel (26)
- Weather (1)
- Writing (8)
Yes, the flatness of Kaurismaki's deadpan, which in the hands of someone like Jim Jarmusch sometimes veers into posturing cool, seems incredibly tender and electric in Kaurismaki's films. It's like the cool blankness of deadpan opens up an offset space for warm things like love and even melodrama to work through in surprising and odd ways. I'm thinking particularly of this weird silent film "Juha" that is ostensibly a folk fable with caricatures of villainy and innocence, but resonates with heightened feeling specifically because of its quiet impassivity.
Posted by: Irene | November 26, 2003 at 08:22 PM
Irene, can you recommend any other good Kaurismaki films?
Posted by: Brian | November 26, 2003 at 09:48 PM
The only Kaurismaki films that I have seen are Man Without a Past, Drifting Clouds, and Juha. Drifting Clouds similarly deals with bad economic times and the down-and-out in Helsinki, and all of them feature the same circle of actors.
Posted by: Irene | November 27, 2003 at 08:46 AM