European Films

A guitar-playing Finnish loser with a heart of gold is lovingly portrayed in newcomer Juha Koiranen’s bittersweet Rock ‘n’ Roll Never Dies. Actor (and in this case, musician) Samuli Edelmann plays the kind-hearted creature to perfection, while the playful story structure always keeps thing interesting from a narrative point of view. Business at home has been modest since its December release, perhaps also because of an overly protracted 131-minute running time. Perhaps with some edits, it could attract the attention of festival programmers and TV buyers. It plays in Competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and at Göteborg.

 

Edelmann is Tiger, an almost 40-year-old amateur musician who still lives with his parents and who sleeps with his beloved, homemade guitar.  Through the stories Tiger reads out at a creative writing class he attends for inspiration and his telling lyrics, Koiranen tells the story of Tiger and his family and friends, including his mother (a pie-baking machine) and his childhood friend Jack Nevada, who has long since emigrated to the United States. The stories are full of the bittersweet variety of humour; with cinematography and its golden lighting suggest a family living in a happy cornflakes-commercial home.

 

Things become more complicated when Jack Nevada announces his return after the death of his father, and he suggests that Tiger, drummer Pumppu and himself come together to reunite their childhood band for a performance at a convention in Helsinki that his company is organising. Though ostensibly the motor of the narrative, providing various clear obstacles to overcome as well as a possible villain, Koiranen approaches this element as if it were just another adventure in the life of his protagonist. This shifts the balance slightly, stressing the importance of stories-within-stories even more, including a touching short story that is recounted by his creative writing professor after dinner at Tiger’s home.

 

Since there is little or no narrative drive other than being fully immersed by its gentle and amusing stories, the running time of 131 minutes is overly long and could be cut by at least 30 minutes, though it would be difficult to say what has to go. Performances all are excellent across the board, including Hennariikka Laaksola as Kiti, Tiger’s nominal love interest, and Marjukka Halttunen as his mother. Flashback scenes seem to get all the period details right without being obvious and production design is wonderful, especially on the homemade guitar and amplifier.  Rock 'n' Roll Never Dies is in fact the motto inscribed manually on Tiger's guitar.