"Director: Aki Kaurismaki"

• The Aki Kaurismaki Collection - Vol. 3 | DVD | (22/10/2007) from £79.99   |  Saving you £-50.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Aki Kaurism''ki s deadpan ironic and idiosyncratic films have established him as one of modern European cinema's most accomplished filmmakers. This box set presents three of his remarkable and highly acclaimed features. Crime and Punishment: Kaurism''ki s first feature follows the descent into crime of Rahikainen a slaughterhouse worker and former law student who murders a businessman and then begins a tense game of cat and mouse with the police. Effectively updating Dostoevsky s great novel to 1980s Helsinki this remarkably assured debut offers a sharp critique of Finnish society. Calamari Union: A group of men all bar one called Frank abandon their downtrodden neighbourhood in search of Eira a near mythical district across town that promises a better life. Kaurism''ki s second features details their misadventures along the way with deadpan humour and rock and roll attitude. Hamlet Goes Buisness: In this wicked and hilarious satire of the corporate world Kaurism''ki liberally updates Shakespeare s tragedy as a hard-boiled noir B-movie. Finnish comic Pirkka-Pekka Petelius plays an irresponsible playboy who finds himself involved in a vicious boardroom power struggle with his uncle who plans to sell off his company s assets in order to corner the market on Swedish rubber ducks. La Vie de Boh''me: Freely adapted from Henri Murger s 1851 novel this is Kaurism''ki s highly individual take on the story of three bohemian artists a poet a painter and a composer set in a timeless Paris. Shifting between heartbreaking drama and black humour the fine cast features cameos from Jean-Pierre L''aud Sam Fuller and Louis Malle.

• Aki Kaurismaki Collection Vol.1 | DVD | (24/09/2007) from £25.63   |  Saving you £4.36 (17.01%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Cult Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurism''ki is internationally renowned for his distinctively spare and deadpan character studies of society's also-rans. This three disc set contains his acclaimed Underdog Trilogy which finds Kaurism''ki at the height of his sardonic humanist powers. Set Comprises: Shadows in Paradise (1986): Kaurism''ki regulars Matti Pellonp'''' and Kati Outinen star in this offbeat yet remarkably touching romantic comedy. Pellonp'''' plays Nikander a rubbish collector and wouldbe entrepreneur who finds his plans for success dashed with the unexpected death of his business associate. Whilst searching for a job he meets Ilona (Outinen) a down-on- her luck cashier in a local supermarket and falteringly a bond begins to develop between them. Ariel (1988): Acclaimed as one of Kaurism''ki's most accomplished early films 'Ariel' follows the exploits of the laconic Taisto a newly-unemployed Lapland miner who sets off in a Cadillac convertible for a fresh start in Helsinki. Joined in his odyssey by meter maid Irmeli and her young son Taitso's plans take a series of unexpected turns in this dryly comic and satirical melange of road movie and film noir. The Match Factory Girl (1990): This blackly comic minimalist masterpiece stars Kati Outinen as Iiris a shy and dowdy young woman stuck in a dead-end job on a match factory production line. She dreams of finding love at the local dancehall but her attempts are constantly foiled by her selfish parents and the callous behaviour of would-be suitors. Finding herself pregnant after a one-night stand and abandoned by the father Iiris finally decides the time has come to get even and she begins to plot her revenge.

• The Aki Kaurismaki Collction Vol.2 | DVD | (08/10/2007) from £9.99   |  Saving you £20.00 (200.20%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Titles Comprise: 1. Take Care of Your Scarf Tatjana: 2. Drifting Clouds 3. Juha

• The Man Without A Past | DVD | (21/09/2009) from £10.78   |  Saving you £2.21 (17.00%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A delirious mixture of black comedy film noir and love sory Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki's rapturously received The Man Without A Past triumphed at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival carrying off the Best Actress and Grand Jury Prize. Markku Peltola plays 'M' who arrives in Helsinki only to be viciously set upon by thugs and pronounced dead by medics. By some miracle he revives but with no memory of his past or his identity. Rebuilding his life from scratch 'M' acquires a melancholy dog (a recurring Kaurismaki motif) named Hannibal and falls in love with a Salvation Army soup kitchen volunteer (Kati Outinen). But the past inevitably cataches up with him forcing him to confront his future. Nominated for an Academy Award The Man Without A Past is a beautifully observed and effortlessly charming masterpiece stylishly infused with Kauismaki's keen eye for the surreal - nowhere more in evidence than in the deadpan dialogue - and the film-maker's compassion for the dispossessed. Containing nods to Hollywood amnesiac pictures of the 1950s and the director's beloved rock and roll it's a unique work existing in an ultimately tender universe all of its very own.

• Leningrad Cowboys - Total Balalaika Show | DVD | (30/07/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Pop history in the making as those nutty popsters the Leningrad Cowboys bash out a fistful of hits in front of 70,000 people in Helsinki's main square. Accompaniment is by 100 singers from the Red Army Chorus. Glasnost comes to town in this concert movie, which records the momentous evening on July 12, 1993 in Helsinki's Senate Square when the Leningrad Cowboys were united on stage with Russia's Red Army Chorus in front of 70,000 people. The realities of post-communism are pushed firmly to one side (the backdrop includes a bust of Lenin behind the wheel of a convertible) and the two groups come together to celebrate the unifying power of music. A varied repertoire includes `Delilah', `Knockin' On Heaven's Door' and `The Volga Boatmen', and it's impressive to see the Chorus retain their dignity while the Cowboys jump around round them.