Huntsville / Juha

Cinemix
Live music: Huntsville (Norway)
Film: Juha, Aki Kaurismäki (Finland, 1999)

The Norwegian movie Huntsville has dared to cross rock, drone, jazz and electro –acoustic improvisation. Huntsville mixes textures with traditional echoes and turns them into a radical conceptual language that has been described as Abstract Americana and Yoga Country. His music is a futuristic jazz in which nothing is superficial or vain. A hypnotic journey, different and wonderful.

• Ivar Grydeland: bass guitar, banjo, pedal steel, etc.
• Tonny Kluften: bass, double bass, bass pedal, rhythm box
• Ingar Zach: scruti box, tabla machine, drone, percusión
• The Sound Wiz: sounds

Juha

Original title: Juha / Director: Aki Kaurismäki / Country: Finland / Year: 1999 / Duration: 78 min / Starring: Sakari Kuosmanen, Kati Outinen, André Wilms, Markku Peltola, Elina Salo

Synopsis: A farmers wife is seduced by a stranger from the big city who tries to tempt her to join him but then enslaves her in a brothel.

Perhaps by trying to capture the purity of silent movies, Aki Kaurismäki, decided to make a silent film with which to rescue this type of simple and universally accepted medium.

In Finland Aki Kaurismäki is considered to be one of the cult European directors of the last decade. The movies of Kaurismäki have similarities with those of Jim Jarmusch. His films are full of eloquent silence, humour and social issues, full of odd characters and affectionate losers. His best known titles include The Match Factory Girl, La Vie de Bohème and the road movie Leningrad Cowboys go America.