Sakari Kuosmanen

*************************************SPOILERS*********************** As a non Finnish speaker I watched this with Finnish Subtitles to Finnish dialogue. This therefore is my limited understanding of the movie. A Man is attacked by three younger men. The attack is vicious and the first man is robbed and left for dead. He somehow staggers to the hospital where he is thought lost and left by the medical staff only to jump up and leave the place. He is robbed of his boots whilst prone by water but luck has him taken in by people that care for him rather than misuse him. He as he slowly recovers has lost his memory and therefore spends the rest of the film unable to do more than survive via the relative kindness of others. Two youngsters and their mother. A Male friend of hers too. Blind Lemon Jefferson on the sound track and other songs provide clues to the Mystery Man's love of music. The attacked man finds accommodation (at a price) essentially a container. Salvation Army personnel help him and others. And one female Salvation Army officer particular become part of his life. He starts to help the Army in their work. He adds modern or fairly modern songs to the Salvation Army's musical quartet's reportoir and a female Salvation Army leader becomes their singer. He stumbles on the fact that he may have been a welder of some skill. He has already proved he can organise and is gifted a dog. Hannibal. On a visit to the bank - it is robbed and he and a female teller are locked in a vault. The police now take an interest in this mystery man and his identity is sought via the Press. The lawyer that springs him is quite a funny turn. I have never heard a Finnish accent like that gentleman's. Almost undecipherable to me at least. The bank robber later finds him and yields up his ill gotten gains before I assume killing himself Our mystery man spread tht money around his acquaintances and later in the film we find out what part of it was for. His identity is found and he travels to meet the wife he had forgotten who was divorcing him at the time he went missing and that was now complete. It allowed both of them to continue leading their new lives. Another man for the ex-wife and Salvation Army lady for our former Mystery Man. On the way back to Helsinki the three attackers from the start of the film are encountered again but this time he is not alone. The bad men's fates are left to our imagination but I suspect the police were not troubled till later. The man and his new love exit across a railway track.

A farmer's wife is seduced into running away from her stolid older husband by a city slicker, who enslaves her in a brothel.

The recession hits a couple in Helsinki. Tram driver Lauri loses his job. Shortly later, the restaurant where his wife Ilona works as a head waitress is closed. Too proud to receive money from the social welfare system, they strive to find new jobs. But they are completely unlucky and clumsy, one disaster is followed by the next. —Frank Wallner <wallnerf@informatik.tu-muenchen.de>

The story concerns the exploits of an extremely inept but dedicated troupe of accordian musicians, ''The Leningrad Cowboys''. These eight Finnish lads head off for New York. There they encounter yet another wise guy, who sends them off to Mexico by car to play at his cousin's wedding. Along the way, they get bookings wherever they can, learn American music styles, and get along fabulously.

An episode in the life of Nikander, a garbage man, involving the death of a coworker, a love affair and much more. Only connect. In gray, class-conscious Helsinki, Nikander is a stoic, solitary garbage man. Cigarettes, coffee, bingo games, and English lessons border his circumscribed life. There are few words, no smiles, and no laughter. Violence and the threat of violence seem close at hand. Ilona, a supermarket clerk who frequently loses her job, bandages Nikander's hand one evening; later he gets her out of a jam, and they begin an on-again off-again relationship. "Why do I keep losing?," Nikander asks his co-worker, Melartin, a man Nikander met in jail and helped get a job. Can he break his losing streak? —<jhailey@hotmail.com>

An exodus to a better life in Eira. A group of med - all but one - called Frank, seek refuge from their boring lives in an oasis on the other side of the city, having to overcome obstacles on their way. Fourteen desperate men named Frank, band together to escape from a repressive section of Helsinki. An English-speaking non-Frank named Pekka joins the barroom conspirators, whose avoidance of last names, and any affect, help them outsmart overwhelming forces as they sneak through dark subway tunnels and alleys, hoping against despair to reach magical seaside Eira. The Calamari Unionists take advantage of unending night to venture their intrepid journey. —David Stevens