Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana

Valto lives with his mother at a tailor's workshop and drinks coffee constantly. When the coffee runs out he loses his temper. Reino is a mechanic and drinks vodka. The two get into a car and set off; where they are going is not clear. On the road they meet two women. Tatjana is Estonian and Klavdia Russian; both want to reach the harbour. Four people in one car. The men do not speak. The women do not speak either. The road goes on. They stop at a motel and take separate rooms. Something is expected to happen and it does not. Aki Kaurismäki directs. Kati Outinen, Matti Pellonpää, Kirsi Tykkyläinen and Mato Valtonen are in the cast. It is a Finnish production, made in 1994. The film was shot in black and white and runs a little over an hour. The narrative keeps dialogue to a minimum; the characters barely speak and what passes between them is built through gesture. The matter it treats is the failure to communicate; the film gives it not as drama but as comedy. Coffee and vodka define the two men inside the narrative. Music is an important part of it; Finnish rock and tango play through the scenes. Kaurismäki's known manner is here too; fixed frames, flat playing and dry humour. The narrative seems to be set in the sixties and the period is left uncertain. Its limit is scale; the narrative is very short, there is next to no event, and the ending quiet. Who it is for: viewers who like Kaurismäki's cinema and minimal style. Who it is not for: it is uneventful, dry, and the ending unresolved.