Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana

6/5/2018

Shot in 1993, TAKE CARE OF YOUR SCARF, TATJANA! is one of Aki Kaurismäki's lesser-known films from this highly productive period in the Finnish auteur's career. Coffee addict Valto (Mato Valtonen) and vodka-guzzler Reino (Matti Pellonpää) go for a test drive through the Finnish countryside in Valto's newly-repaired sedan. They meet two tourists from the former USSR, Tatjana (Kati Outinen) and Klavdia (Kirsi Tykkyläinen) who are stranded along a rural road after their tour bus has broken down. The women convince Valto and Reino to drive them to the port in Helsinki so they can get the ferry home, and the film tracks their adventures together – or rather the lack thereof: even as Tatjana and Klavdia try to chat and even flirt, the taciturn Finns just swill their coffee or vodka and ignore th