Leningrad Cowboys Go America

A polka band in the Soviet tundra finds no audience at home, so their manager takes them to America. Along the way they play through the Deep South, mixing their own sound with American styles, and finally connect at a wedding in Mexico. The members go about in foot-long quiffs and winklepicker shoes. One frozen bandmate is transported in a coffin. Aki Kaurismaki directed. Matti Pellonpaa plays Vladimir, the manager exploiting them, and Kari Vaananen plays Igor, who says nothing. The director Jim Jarmusch appears as a car salesman and the blues guitarist Duke Robillard has a brief part. The budget was around 3.6 million Finnish markka, 400,000 of it granted by the Finnish Film Foundation. It runs 79 minutes. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 100 percent. Empire placed it 88th in its 2010 list of the 100 best films of world cinema. It counts as Kaurismaki's breakthrough in the United States. Who it is for: viewers who like dry humour, absurd road movies and musical comedy. Who it is not for: anyone expecting character development. The band stays inside the same single joke throughout, and the film means it to.