Despite creating an extensive and innovative body of work over the last 30 years, Aki Kaurismäki remains relatively neglected in Anglophone scholarship. This international collection of original essays aims to redress such neglect by assembling diverse critical inquiries into Kaurismäki's oeuvre. The first anthology on Kaurismäki to be published in English, it offers a range of voices responding to his politically and aesthetically compelling cinema. Deploying various methodologies to explore multiple facets of his work, The Films of Aki Kaurismäki will come to be seen as the definitive book on Kaurismäki.

List of ContributorsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction Thomas Austin Part 1: Time and Space Chapter 1: Temporality in Kaurismäki: Anachronism, Allusion, Tableau Thomas Austin Chapter 2: Three Ecologies of Kaurismäki Pietari Kääpä Chapter 3: Beyond the Edges of the Frame: The Invisible in Aki Kaurismäki's Films Lara PerskiChapter 4: Kaurismäki and Japan Eija Niskanen Part 2: Tone and Point of View Chapter 5: The Camera's Ironic Point of View: Notes on Strange and Comic Elements in the Films of Aki Kaurismäki Jaakko Seppälä Chapter 6: Dreamers and Other Sentimental Fools: Money, Solidarity and Ambivalent Populism in the Films of Aki Kaurismäki Panos Kompatsiaris Chapter 7: The Cultural Techniques of Gesture in Aki Kaurismäki's Proletarian Trilogy Angelos KoutsourakisChapter 8: Kaurismäki's Musical Moments: Genre, Irony, Utopia, Redemption Andrew Nestingen Part 3: Performance Chapter 9: Levels of typification in Aki Kaurismäki's Drifting Clouds Henry Bacon Chapter 10: Masquerading, Underacting, and Screen Performances in Hamlet Goes Business Ulrike Hanstein Chapter 11: Deadpan Dogs: Kaurismäki's Canine Comedies Michael Lawrence FilmographyBibliographyIndex