I haven't had much of any exposure to Finnish culture prior to Aki Kaurismäki's films. Sadly, the sole previous datum in my memory bank with which to link Finns is an ethnic joke I heard on the annual joke show of Garrison Keillor's radio show A Prairie Home Companion.

How can you tell if you're talking to an extroverted Finn?

He looks at your shoes.

This joke's humor works from its subtlety, its nuance. This is not a joke that slams you upside the head in a Gallagher-esque (remember him?) way. It is so subtle, that, I often find myself having to explain it to people. So, to avoid confusing anyone, I'll explain it here. It works off a stereotype of Finns as extremely introverted. Introversion is often mis-associated with shyness. Shy people may have a hard time looking at people, so one might find them looking at their shoes. So how do you know if you are talking with an extroverted person within a culture typecast as extremely introverted? They would look at your shoes rather than their own.

Many may say this joke is harmless fun. In the United States, I've not heard about, read of, nor witnessed any reports of any one assumed to be Finnish being discriminated against in employment, education, and dating due to an assumed debilitating introversion. If it doesn't exacerbate any oppression, if there is any, towards Finnish-Americans, then I'll agree it's harmless.

However, how this stereotype plays in Scandinavia could be very different. I'm sure there are some Finns who might want to get all extroverted on my ass with a good old-fashioned public beat down after having to read that damn joke yet again. But I'm not familiar with Scandinavian culture enough to know if the stereotype presents obstacles in ones pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness, or whatever the Scandinavian constitutional equivalents might be.

I'm assuming the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has the lowdown on the Finn as Other. In many ways, his films further propagate the introverted aspects of Finnish culture. His characters are often silent, sometimes throughout the whole film. How often do the band members of Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989) in fact speak? And when characters do finally speak, it is often after a long absence, such as The Match Factory Girl (Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö, 1990) where it feels like an hour before any character utters a single word. The characters are so engaged in shoe-gazing that when they do finally look at each other, we experience one of the most powerful gazes cinema has ever thrown back on us. The intimacy between the couple in Drifting Clouds (Kauas pilvet karkaavat, 1996) is delicate and tempered, but it bonds them to each other well beyond what we might think any naked, sweaty, carnal embrace might do.

A look at Kaurismäki's take on how Finns are seen and see themselves is part of what is so wonderful about a rarely shown film of Kaurismäki's that is premiering throughout the country as part of a tour of Kaurismäki's works sans his brother Mika. That film is Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana (Pidä hivista kiini, Tatjana, 1994). At 65 minutes of black and white length, one can see why it may have taken a while for it to premiere - besides that whole darn subtitles myth in the United States - since it doesn't register with the rigid classification of how long a film should be. It sits in a cinematic no-time's land. It really isn't a short. (Perhaps, we can call it a "medium.") It's to a film as a novella is to a novel. (Perhaps, "filmella"?) But Kaurismäki is not known for being long-winded, most of his features running around 90 minutes. Still, with his expert pacing and refusal to dazzle us with spectacle, each film seems to tell a story greater than then the sum of its parts, and Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana exemplifies Kaurismäki's gifts.

Two Finns, one Estonian, and one Russian do not walk into a bar, but they do walk into a few cafes, a club, and a ship after walking into one another's lives for a brief moment. We first meet Valto (Mato Valtonen) as he subverts gender roles while supporting them at the same time. He sews up little girl's dresses for his cigar-smoking mother who packages them up. She initially appears to rule over her momma's boy, but when he finds the house completely void of his precious black gold, coffee, he locks his mother in the back room and begins his journey. Along the way we witness more of his love affair with coffee. It is a constant companion in his life. So much so that he orders himself a coffee maker outfitted for his car, similar to the pre-CD player appliance in his car that allows him to play 45s of rockabilly music, a constant aural motif in Kaurismäki's films.

Before the road Valto has traveled less can be taken, he picks up his car from his friend and mechanic Reino (Matti Pellonpää, ever present in Kaurismäki's films, even posthumously). Vodka is to Reino as Coffee is to Valto. And Reino has specifics about drinking his vodka, always from the bottle, tapping the bottom with the back of his elbow in an awkward maneuver. All these quirks amongst male characters are another Kaurismäki staple. No one is normal yet everyone is normal. Whereas, with films such as Lenningrad Cowboys Go America, the quirks seem to be tossed in randomly, each quirk here fits with the characters nicely. Not too many to be gimmicky, yet bizarre enough to never go unnoticed.

The Estonian and Russian enter at the same time. They aren't picked up but offer themselves up for the picking. They have to reach the capital of Estonia, Tallinn, and then the two women will part to their respective homes. The Russian, Klaudia (Kirsi Tykkyläinen), picks the two Finns out of a café line-up and pronounces them dumb, thus gullible to be used for free transportation, without ever meeting them. The Estonian, Tatjana (the equally ever present, Kati Outinen), acts as a middle ground, neutral territory between Finland and Russia. She has bothered to learn some Finnish whereas Klaudia has not. This is easier for Tatjana, since Estonian and Finnish lie next to each other along the dialect continuum of the Uralic Languages. Yet Tatjana's efforts to speak Finnish also represent her unwillingness to concur with Klaudia's stereotypes of all things Finnish.

These women attempt to engage with these men to make their travels more interesting, but their efforts, however tame, are still too demanding for the personalities of these composite Finns. Yet, slowly, each grows on the other. This is hardest to see between Klaudia and Valto, the more mis-matched of the two couples, yet an underlining connection is established between the two. Valto seems to see his mother in Klaudia, thus, repelling from her, yet his dream at the end and his tears from her gift tell us he wanted something from her, he just didn't know how to ask. He was oblivious to the subtle, and less than subtle, offerings. Unable to act on his desires, or unable to realize his desires until the person assisting in their generation departs, he returns to the familiar, home, . . . Finland. Klaudia quickly realizes Valto will not see what he can have, but rather than this reinforcing her stereotypes of Finns, her simple gestures at the end appear to show she now, like Tatjana, has a better understanding of the wide spectrum of human differences.

Better matched, Reino and Tatjana's pace conveys a slow tide undulating towards romance. In one scene, we see Reino, in a motel room shared with Tatjana, looking out the window as he smokes. The nighttime lights cast a shadow on the wall. When the shadow shifts from action outside, we realize Tatjana has been standing watch behind Reino. Once we notice her, we notice her non-physical embrace of Reino across space. It's just at the level he needs, just at the level he can accept. This tempered courtship continues, culminating just before the day Tatjana and Klaudia are to depart. When Reino looks up, slowly, away from her shoes and into Tatjana's eyes, we share witness to a true treasure of cinematic intimacy.

I have yet to cover the complete Aki Kaurismäki library. Living in the United States can make such difficult. Films I've not mentioned here that I have seen are Crime and Punishment (Rikos ja rangistus, 1983) and The Man Without a Past (Mies vailla menneisyyttä, 2002), the winner of the 2002 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix du Jury. However, Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana seems to be a testament to Kaurismäki's skill at patiently pacing partners together and away. Through these characters, a composite Finn-ness is explored through the eyes of others and The Other. Yet, at the same time, a space is carved out to step beyond that conception of Finn-ness, into different waters, showing that a Finn can be as many things as an Estonian, a Russian, and, for that matter, a Fijian. A Finn is more human than the jokes imply. A Finn is as human as the jokes imply.

For we all dream of a journey, we all dream of love. We are all extroverts when we decide to take that journey and pursue that dream. And we are all introverts when we return to what is safe and comfortable and known.

                                                                 © FILM JOURNAL 2002