From: matsinen@jyu.fi (Timo Matsinen)
Subject: Jari Halonen LA: ssa
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
Distribution: sfnet
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 07:53:16 GMT

Heippa kaikille!

Enp{ ole paljon elokuvia seuraillut enk{ tied{ niist{ mit{{n, mutta Los
Angelesissa asuva yst{v{ni Adrienne Ono, joka opiskelee UCLAssa ja valmistautuu
parhaillaan v{it|stilaisuuteensa, on kiinnostunut. Omp{ innostunut jopa 
suomalaisista kuvista, joita n{ytell{{n Melnitziss{. Meneill{{n on ilmeisesti
jonkinlainen suomalaisten elokuvien sarja Suomi 75 merkeiss{. Kaurism{en
veljesten kuvin lis{ksi n{ytill{ on ollut Jari Halosen kuva. Ohessa on yst{v{ni
arvio.

TM

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Back to the USSR (Takaisin Ryssiin?)

speaking of fucked up, this movie was exactly that! i don't really know 
what to say about it. i just plain did not get it. even after the panel 
discussion with the director (Jari Halonen), the star (Jorma Tommila), and 
some other guy in the technical part of the crew (Heikki Ahonius), i 
_still_ don't know what i saw. i can tell you the story, more or less, and 
i can tell you what i think the movie was about in general terms. the 
movie is some metaphorical tale about the fall (and ultimate 
pointlessness???) of communism, i guess. the basic plot is a hard-line 
communist, Reima, in some backwoods Finn town is down on his luck in
every way. just as he is trying to hang himself, he is befriended by Lenin,
who it turns out is a vampire (and so, doens't/can't die). they go about
trying to pull fantasitc media stunts to get attentiion (for the party and
the cause, of course), but it never works out. in the end, Reima kills 
Lenin (at his request). i just don't know. are we supposed to be glad or 
sad that communism is "dead"? i can't really tell you whether or not the 
director is on the Left or Right (well, actually, it was pretty clear that 
he was on the Left, although not a communist, by the things he said in the 
discussion). so that's the story in general, but i can't tell you why we 
saw any of the individual scenes that we watched, and i can't tell you how 
those scenes were supposed to relate to each other. it was truely bizarre.

there were some seriously offensive scenes. i hate to sound like a stuffy 
old fart, but i really didn't feel that i needed to watch people throw up 
repeatedly throughout the film. also, this was clearly a "man's" film 
because the female characters where portrayed _really_ negatively. Jari 
was asked about that in the discussion, and he got himself into some deep 
shit. everytime he tried to make a claim that he was feminist, he just 
made it more clear that he's really a chauvanist pig. the guy's a jerk. 
however, i don't think that my taking offense to some scenes makes the film 
any less valid or any less "art".

what i found both amusing and annoying was this very typical discussion 
about modern art. it was clear that certain members ofthe audience believe 
that they were the "cultural elite" and half of them were saying stuff like 
"this film wholey new and different; so ambitious; so daring; the most 
important film of the year...." (basically it was "good"), and the other 
half were saying that it was total shit, "unredeeming in everyway" was what 
an american woman said (she was pretty rude; although i agreed with some of 
the things she said, i didn't appreciate her tone nor her implications 
(that certain art/films shouldn't be funded because of their content)). of 
course, most of us schmucks in the audience were in the middle; i think 
most of us were saying "i don't get it", or maybe we felt that it was 
bullshit (incomprehensible and empty). i don't know.

there were a ton of Finns at this showing! about half of the people in the
audience who asked questions during the discussion session asked them in
Finnish. a few of the ones who asked in English had Finn accents. every other
Finn in the LA area was there!

so i have a request. why don't you go and see this film (if you haven't
already)? and then you can tell me what it was that i saw. you know, i don't
think it was a language problem (although there was certainly a cultural
barrier). i can honestly say  that i understood a full 20% of the dialog. it
seemed that every 5th word  or so was _sataana_ or _vittu_ or _perkelle_ or
_huora_ or _paska_. there  was even a _turpa_kiini_. i should have counted the
_perkelle_'s -- i'm  sure there was nearly 100 of them.

there was a translator there for the discussion and he really sucked! look, i
guess i shouldn't say that, since i really don't know what was being said, but
here's an example of what would happen after each question. Jari, the director,
would talk (in Finnish) for about 90secs to 2 mins or so -- he'd really be
talking a lot. and then the translator would say, "Jari says he doesn't know".
i'm sure you would have done a better job.
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-- 
Timo Matsinen    Computing Centre of Jyvaskyla University    Jyvaskyla, Finland

E-mail: matsinen@jyu.fi        phone: +358-41-603593        fax: +358-41-603611
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Newsgroups: sfnet.harrastus.elokuvat