Evans & Hayward/Sounding Funny, 9. Sound, Comedy and Cinematic Modernism: Kaasua, komisario Palmu!

Matti Kassila’s Kaasua, komisario Palmu! (1961) is a Finnish detective film combining moods of suspense, horror and comedy. Besides mixing genres the film also blurs the boundaries of popular film and cinematic modernism, especially by its imaginative use of sound. Concentrating on both spatial and temporal transgressions in music, dialogue and sound effects, the chapter examines how different collisions between sound and image or between different musical styles, as well as various patterns of repetition or asynchrony, contribute to the film’s popular-modernist aesthetics.