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CPH:DOX 2022

Einari Paakkanen • Regista di Karaoke Paradise

"Temevo che diventasse un film sui finlandesi ubriachi che ululano nei bar"

di 

- Abbiamo parlato con il regista finlandese del suo film, che esplora la passione del suo paese per il karaoke

Einari Paakkanen • Regista di Karaoke Paradise

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Following My Father from Sirius [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Einari Paakkanen
scheda film
]
, where he talked about his own family, Finnish director Einari Paakkanen returns with Karaoke Paradise [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Einari Paakkanen
scheda film
]
, in which he takes on his country’s beloved pastime and tries to figure out why so many people are trying to sing their worries away. We talked with him at CPH:DOX, where the film was screening.

Cineuropa: In your first film, you showed the people you know – there was no need to break the ice. Was it hard to focus on multiple protagonists, this time? Especially given how sad their stories can be?
Einari Paakkanen: My mother was a journalist. All my life she would come home and edit the interviews she recorded, so maybe I borrowed some of her approaches? Also, I did location scouting for about 10 years. You knock on somebody’s door and then five minutes later you are taking photos of their bedroom. It’s a great way to learn how to approach people. I try to be as open as possible, tell them what I am doing and just be present. It’s really not that different from meeting new friends.

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When I was doing screenwriting workshops for this film, the fear was that there is a character, he or she has a problem, sings and everything is fine once again. If you repeat that five times, it would a very boring film. One of the first people I found was Evi, the karaoke hostess. She featured in a book written by two journalists who followed the karaoke scene. She struck me – there was something in her eyes. Our first phone call lasted three hours. She told me about her life and I asked her why people are doing karaoke in Finland. She said: “Because they are lonely, because they have lost somebody, because they are ill or just for the fun of it. Or they have fallen in love.” She had been witnessing first-hand what the Finnish soul is all about. I understood you can’t explore that through just one person.

That’s the challenge, isn’t it? To make sure everyone’s story is properly told.
There are some iconic Finnish documentaries with multiple characters, like The Living Room of the Nation and Steam of Life [+leggi anche:
trailer
scheda film
]
. But in the latter, you go to one character and never return to him later. I wanted to change that.

I wonder if Finnish docs are celebrated enough for this strange mix of melancholy and warmth. Or do you think that, this time around, it came mostly from you?
I guess that’s how I was raised – I really try to see the good in people, although obviously the world doesn’t work like that. Right now, it just seems like the right choice. With everything that’s going on, we need some faith in each other.

What I also wanted to portray was that in karaoke, everyone gets applauded. It’s a safe environment. With all the social media, our society really makes us think we need to be perfect, or even immaculate. But I see Finnish karaoke as a place where it’s ok to be imperfect. 

Were you always planning to leave the bars and go inside people's homes? It’s one thing to be invited in – I make you sound like a vampire now – but it’s another to witness someone leaving their home after the death of their child.
When it comes to karaoke, the instinct is to be seen and to be heard. “Hey, I am here. Listen to me for a few minutes.” It makes approaching people much easier. I can’t think of another topic that would allow me to just ask someone in a bar: “Can I film you?”

The couple that lost their baby or the woman suffering from Parkinson’s disease, they both replied to the ad we put online. They wrote such beautiful letters that I immediately saw the pain and the desire to sing. We got lucky that they approached us.

Karaoke is often ridiculed as something you do during a drunken bachelorette party. Here, it’s a bit more complex.
People sing sad songs everywhere, but in Finland, we like to do it in front of strangers. In Japan for example, where it allegedly comes from, they like to sing in private booths with the people they know. Who knows what’s going on in there? Are they crying?

I was afraid it was going to be a film about drunken Finns howling in bars. But life surprises you and it exceeds your humble ideas. I remember seeing the same person singing the same song over and over again. What makes them come back, why is it always that song? When they would get on that stage, I felt like I knew them already.

Singing opens up something in you: you can’t hide your true soul. We are as reserved as the Japanese and the lyrics written by others help us express our feelings. We “borrow” them to talk about the pain we have inside. Did you know that karaoke came to Finland in the early 1990s, during the depression? It was a cheap way of entertaining customers – cheaper than booking a rock band. At the same time, there were many restaurants with topless waiters. I am so happy that Finland chose karaoke over that.

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