Elämä lyhyt, Rytkönen pitkä ("Life short, Rytkönen long") is a 1991 Finnish novel by Arto Paasilinna

Arto Paasilinna

Arto Tapio Paasilinna is a Finnish writer, being a former journalist turned comic novelist. One of the most successful novelists of Finland, he has won a broad readership outside of Finland in a way few other Finnish authors have before...

, While farcical from the title's twist on the original saying

Ars longa, vita brevis

Ars longa, vita brevis are the first two lines of a Latin translation of an aphorism by Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates. The words are commonly translated in English as art is long, life is short. The full text in Latin is:...

 onwards, it has a somewhat elegiac

Elegiac

Elegiac refers either to those compositions that are like elegies or to a specific poetic meter used in Classical elegies. The Classical elegiac meter has two lines, making it a couplet: a line of dactylic hexameter, followed by a line of dactylic pentameter...

 mood, an undercurrent of tragedy leavened by humor throughout. A film adaptation of the novel by Ere Kokkonen

Ere Kokkonen

Erkki Olavi "Ere" Kokkonen , born in Savonlinna, was a Finnish film director.He worked closely with Spede Pasanen all the way from the 1960s until Spede's death, as a director and also a writer....

 was released in 1996. The film features many well-known Finnish actors, like Santeri Kinnunen as Seppo Sorjonen and Liisa Roine as Hotel Tammer

Hotel Tammer

Hotel Tammer is situated near Tammerkoski rapids in central Tampere, Finland. Tammer was built in 1929 and it belongs to S Groups Sokos Hotels chain. Other Sokos Hotels in Tampere are Ilves and Villa.- History :...

's waitress.

Plot

Seppo Sorjonen, a young cab driver/wage slave fed up with his lifestyle. Taavetti Rytkönen, an old retired war veteran, standing in the middle of a road with a thick wad of bills in his pocket, trying to remember who he is and how he got there. The two's meeting sparks off a leisurely, low-drama romp through Finland.