Kolme viisasta miestä (2008) User Reviews

This movie warms hearts in Nordic cold

[mehmet_kurtkaya · 7/10 · 2 May 2009]

Three middle aged men, long time friends, get together in a normally closed Karaoke bar to drink their failed lives away. Secrets are revealed and sometimes discovered and they sing their miseries one by one during Karaoke sessions. The arrival of a lone woman to the bar will facilitate revealing of the final secret.

This is a warm, funny movie, one of the rare films celebrating life as is. As such it has a value of its own. The opening scene sets the tone nicely.

I had seen this film during Istanbul Film Festival and the film received a warm welcome from the audience as well.

The Kaurismaki Christmas Album

[RNQ · 8/10 · 17 October 2009]

I can imagine it's disturbing to you fans of Kaurismaki bleakness that he should be making a Christmas movie, but after all Bob Dylan and Kiki and Herb have played on the same bandstand. Still, be warned, his characters here are respectable, and not three alcoholics as a plot summary may suggest. They have reasons for being out on the town on Christmas Eve, when it seems absolutely everybody in Helsinki is somewhere watching or singing hymns and carols. You may sigh with relief there's none of that in the karaoke bar they bribe to stay open, and lean back to relish well acted improvisations as the guys gradually spill out complex dilemmas in the face of seasonal expectations.