Films about bands are supposed to follow the arc of forming, start out awful, get better, create personal or artistic friction, achieve success, then implode just as the world can't get enough of them.
Then there's Leningrad Cowboys.
For See Hear podcast episode 54, Bernie, Tim and Maurice discuss Aki Kaurismaki's 1989 film Leningrad Cowboys Go America about a band from Siberia in the era of glasnost attempting to break into America. They are led through “the promised land” with a clueless manager and followed by their village idiot (who just may be the cousin / brother no one wants to talk about). They play to unreceptive audiences while travelling across America to play at a Mexican wedding, but is that of any importance to them?
The crew discuss music as the air we breathe, adapting to one's environment, the ruling class / working class divide, onions, Elvis quiffs, carrying a stiff around, and rrrrrrrock & rrrrrrroll.
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