The 1980s youth music, which mixed disco with rock and punk with glam, was of course off-putting for decent people. Pertti “Nipa” Neumann’s father also thought that the boy should stop wearing earrings and go to the barber’s, find a normal job – prancing about on stage in silk tatters was no job. Luckily, his mother believed that things would work out in the end. And they did. As the figurehead and songwriter of the band Dingo, the boy from Pori exploded the Finnish music scene, which until then had been a quiet one.

The film about Neumann, who came from a poor background, could be a typical Cinderella story if it didn’t also show the troubled musician’s fall from fame after his incredible success and the birth of Dingo-mania. The three-year-long ceaseless journey ended with a bang, but fortunately Dingo’s music, which is still as maddening as ever, survived.

The film about the Finns’ former idol Neumann is largely true, partly fantasy and also partly based on ironclad rumours. All of this can be confirmed by the countless Estonian Dingo fans, who proudly present their Suosikki posters they once got from the black market and sing along to the hits in the film – “Autiotalo”, “Sinä ja mina”, “Levoton Tuhkimo”, etc.

Peep Ehasalu