Finland

Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides

Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers and Tides is a truly beautiful, Scottish-German 2001 documentary about artist Goldsworthy, a Scotsman whose medium is nature itself and whose preferred studio is the outdoors, particularly where water forever flows, rises, and/or retreats. The soft-spoken, secluded Goldsworthy is seen hard at work making ephemeral sculptures out of bits of ice in the trees, or building tall, mysterious cones from loose rock, which stand like spiritual sentinels in forests and on shorelines, overgrown by plants or swallowed daily by high tides. Filmmaker-cinematographer Thomas Reidelsheimer goes to great and sometimes inexplicable lengths to make visual corollaries to Goldsworthy's ideas about underappreciated relationships between light, color, movement, balance, and fluidity of form in the real world, making Rivers and Tides a lively and always surprising cinematic gallery. Some of Goldsworthy's most miraculous natural installations--stone walls that snake through hundreds of feet of forest and stream, for instance--show up in the last half-hour. --Tom Keogh

Wildly praised by the nation's top critics, the smash theatrical hit RIVERS AND TIDES is a mesmerizing, poetic and curiously contemplative portrait of revered Scottish sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, whose long-winding rock walls, icicle assemblages and other intricate, druidic masterpieces are made entirely of materials found in the wild. Gorgeously shot and edited by director Thomas Riedelsheimer, RIVERS AND TIDES is an intoxicating study of the fragile relationship between man, art and nature.

Russian Ark: The Masterworks Edition

Russian master Alexander Sokurov has tapped into the very flow of history itself for this flabbergasting film. Thanks to the miracles of digital video, Sokurov (and cinematographer Tilman Buttner) uses a single, unbroken, 90-minute shot to wind his way through the Hermitage in St. Petersburg--the repository of Russian art and the former home to royalty. Gliding through time, we glimpse Catherine II, modern-day museumgoers, and the doomed family of Nicholas II. History collapses on itself, as the opulence of the past and the horrors of the 20th century collide, and each door that opens onto yet another breathtaking gallery is another century to be heard from. The movie climaxes with a grand ball and thousands of extras, prompting thoughts of just how crazy Sokurov had to be to try a technical challenge like this--and how far a distance we've traveled, both physically and spiritually, since the movie began. --Robert Horton

A modern filmmaker magically finds himself transported to the 18th century, where he embarks on a time-traveling journey through 300 years of Russian history in Alexander Sokurov's masterpiece. Filmed in HD with directors commentary

Leningrad Cowboys - Total Balalaika Show

Rock meets classic folk music in this most unusual of concert films. It was on Senate Square in Helsinki in 1993 when the Leningrad Cowboys joined the Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble for a unique blend of music and spectacle. The Leningrad Cowboys had been created by director Aki Kaurismäki for a previous film while the Red Army Chorus was formed to preserve Russian folk music. What might seem an impossible combination of musical styles and tastes actually becomes a sublime cosmic experience, especially when the Red Army musicians pick up their balalaikas to join the Cowboys on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

The Five Obstructions

Once upon a time--1967, to be precise--Danish director Jørgen Leth released The Perfect Human. In The Five Obstructions, fellow countryman Lars von Trier (Breaking the Waves) challenges his "hero" to remake the short five times and provides a different set of "obstructions" for each. Because Leth likes cigars, von Trier suggests the first be made in Cuba. For the second, however, he sends Leth to "the worst place on earth"--Bombay's red light district. The obstructions keep coming, interspersed with conversation and clips from the original film, in which actors engage in a variety of activities, like eating and dancing, while the narrator posits oblique questions like "Why is joy so whimsical?" (Von Trier claims to have watched it "at least 20 times.") In the end, the two Danes have whipped up an unclassifiable concoction that plays less like documentary and more like a duel between friendly adversaries. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Producing Adults

Antero, a speed skater, and Venla, a psychologist, are a modern, long-time unmarried couple in Finland. But their relatioship is in crisis: Venla wants them to finally marry and have a family. Antero is fine with marrying, but definitely does not want children, particularly as he believes it will interfere with his success in sports. Fearful of losing Venla, Antero proposes, but secretly, he also gets a vasectomy. Frustrated and angry-and determined to have a child-Venla concocts a plan to have an "after hours" insemination at the fertility clinic where she works. But to her surprise, she begins to develop feelings for Satu, the sympathetic female doctor in on the scheme.

Tom of Finland: Daddy and the Muscle Academy

Tom of Finland (born Touko Laaksonen) is one of the major icons of the gay world. Taking inspiration from his World War II army days, 1950s American bodybuilding magazines and biker movies, Tom's erotic drawings of uniformed and leather-clad beefcake have become a permanent fixture of 20th-century iconography. Completed shortly before his death in 1991, this definitive documentary of the man and the artist combines interviews with Tom himself, commentary from his "leather men," hundreds of original drawings and steamy fantasy scenes inspired by his work.

Kinski: My Best Fiend

Most people associate the director Werner Herzog with the actor Klaus Kinski--but few know how twisted and enmeshed their relationship was. Though Kinski has made dozens of movies, he probably remains best known for the five he made with Herzog: Aguirre: The Wrath of God, Woyzeck, Nosferatu the Vampyre, Cobra Verde, and Fitzcarraldo. In this documentary/cinematic memoir, Herzog uses clips from these remarkable films, on-the-set footage, and personal recollections to create a portrait of Kinski as both a deeply passionate actor and a raving lunatic; it's hard to say whether he's defaming Kinski or being generous to this mercurial, erratic actor. There's no question that their relationship is fascinating; after their first movie (Aguirre, probably the best of their collaborations) they both described moments of wanting to kill each other--in fact, both agree that Herzog threatened to shoot Kinski at one point, though they differ on the details. Yet they went on to make four more movies, almost all of them under circumstances that would be difficult for the most serene personalities. My Best Fiend was inspired by Kinski's death, and probably the movie's weakest aspect is that we don't get Kinski's side of their friendship. But even though it's one-sided, it's still a remarkable portrait of two artists who were willing to go to extremes to capture their visions. Any fan of either will find this unique documentary indispensable. --Bret Fetzer

Young Gods

Taavi is a wealthy and artistic young man who goes nowhere without his camcorder. On his 18th birthday, he inherits his deceased parents' mansion, and immediately throws a wild party. Of course, he tapes the entire drunken spree. The next morning, Taavi shows the film to his best friends. They are inspired to form a club, with one simple agenda: At each meeting, members must bring a videotape of his latest sexual adventure. The tape can be shot openly or covertly, with a partner or a stranger. What starts as a simple game quickly degenerates into dangerous compulsions, as their girlfriends' refuse to be taped, and the boys turn to prostitutes and swingers to find new material. Soon, fun and games turn to the darker currents of coercion and abuse, and the young men are forced to confront their own mortality in the viewfinder.

The Man Without a Past

The spare and quirky comedy of Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismaki is in delightful form in The Man Without a Past. A man (Markku Peltola) awakens after a brutal mugging with no memory; he wanders into the outskirts of Helsinki with his face wrapped like an escapee from a classic horror film. A destitute family helps nurse him back to health and a Salvation Army worker named Irma (Kati Outinen) helps him get a job. Though bureaucrats and policemen who can't seem to cope with this amnesiac's lack of established identity, the amnesiac plants potatoes, manages a rock & roll band, and romances Irma as he builds a new self. Kaurismaki weaves his movies out of small details and careful, cautious steps forward--but by the end, The Man Without a Past has become a rich, engrossing, and very funny portrait of the possibilities of life. --Bret Fetzer

Ambush