meditations on art and cultural bridges

With a little help from Kaurismaki.

[1] dialectics (with a little Italian lesson in subtitles)

[2] If Finns and Russians can have so much fun, Finland being the last country to swiftly repulse a Russian invasion, indeed the last country to repel swiftly a superpower invasion... why can't we have such as this below between Australia and Indonesia or Vietnam, or China and Japan? Some background on the Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Choir here.

And for those who fear Arabs as a class of people, meet Yasmine Hamdan.

and if you have time enjoy the movie in which that scene takes place, near the end

Jim Jarmusch made the film, surely America's answer to Finland's Kaurismaki

— Everyone speaks slowly, so the Spanish subtitles are an excellent language lesson

With Tilda Swinton and John Hurt, not really your average vampire movie,
but a voyage into the jadedness of world-wandering people who live a very very long time...