Not to miss in Helsinki

The Finnish film-maker Aki Kaurismaki owns the Moskva bar and it has been in a couple of his films. We went for a drink last night and loved the place. All worn down Russian-style and small and maybe only 8 people in there, most lonely men. All looking like they came straight from a Kaurismaki film-shot. This Russian lady in the little bar was silently playing some crappy Russian music on the vinyl-player. No one talked very much, just sipping their vodka. My loud German colleague in his pink oxford-shirt, slightly overly-refreshed, suddently burst out his opinon on prostitution "Well who is surprised, we /men/ were just a biological error to start with anyway!". The whole place stopped and stared at him.

This reminded me of "I hired a contract killer" from 1991. A miserable but proud tiny French man is meeting up with his own killer in a shabby East-London pub. When he enters the basement floor, the tatooed lads stop to stare at him. He stares back at them and with his weak voice in very strong French accent he spits back at them "Where I come from we eat places like this for breakfast". One of the best line in film-history.

Very pleased to been told that there are Kaurismaki-boxes at the airport.