Fallen Leaves [2023]

 Aki Kaurismäki had considered quitting filmmaking after The Other Side of Hope, but had left the door ajar about completing what, along with Le Havre, was being referred to as ‘Refugee/Dockyard Trilogy’. To the joy of every cinephile, he returned behind the camera 6 years later with Fallen Leaves; but, in a thoroughly unanticipated volte face, he made it as the delightful fourth chapter in his magnificent ‘Proletariat Trilogy’ instead, which arguably comprised of three of his finest works – viz  Shadows in Paradise, Ariel and The Match Factory Girl – albeit, closest in both storyline and tone to the first film in how it too portrayed in a distinctively Kaurismäkian manner… that is to say, droll, deadpan, understated, melancholic, and with bone dry humour providing piquant accompaniment to sharp social and political awareness, and therefore “a delectable yet quietly poignant romantic comedy on two people who’ve never seen nor aspired for better days” (to reuse my words while reflecting on that seriocomic gem). The two lonely, drifting, financially struggling and kind-hearted working-class protagonists pushing into their middle-ages – reminiscent of the unforgettable duo of Kati Outinen and Matti Pellonpää – are the mournful Ansa (Alma Pöysti), who’s forced to take up one meagre odd-job after another, and the taciturn Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), a dismissed sandblaster slipping into alcoholism. Over the course of the film’s slender length, they shyly meet, develop mutual liking, but keep losing each other for both personal and circumstantial reasons. Filled with an eclectic Finnish soundtrack that asserted Kaurismäki’s terrific ear for music, and shot in vivid yet subdued palettes that distilled poetry and warmth from despair and desolation, this bittersweet film also celebrated cinema through various tongue-in-cheek references.

p.s. Watched it at the 2024 Bangalore International Film Festival (BIFFES)

Director: Aki Kaurismaki

Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire/Romantic Comedy

Language: Finnish

Country: Finland

Compartment No. 6 [2021]

 The premise of Compartment No. 6, viz. formation of an unlikely bond between two strangers while traveling on train, had reminded me of Kawalerowicz’s Night Train and Linklater’s Before Sunrise; admittedly, a bit more of the former, as the chances of a Russian movie being tonally closer to a Polish film seemed relatively higher, despite the pointless comparisons to the latter. However, on hindsight, this charming, earthy, offbeat, gently eccentric and delectably anachronistic film was as similar to them as Russian vodka is to Polish lager and American bourbon. Laura (Seidi Haarla) is a Finnish woman fluent in Russian who’s studying archaeology in Moscow and is having an affair with her professor (Dinara Drukarova). The two had planned a rail trip to Murmansk in order to see the ancient petroglyphs there; but when the prof drops out at the last moment – she’s looking at ending their relationship, unbeknownst to her love-struck student – Laura embarks on this massive cross-country journey herself to the sparsely populated and bitingly cold little Arctic town. Sharing her tiny compartment is Lyokha (Yuri Borisov), a rough young miner. The two oddball characters couldn’t be further apart – she’s fidgety, luckless, sensitive and forlorn, while he’s hard-drinking, foul-mouthed, coarse and loutish – and yet, to the director’s credit – and arguably the two excellent actors’ too, in the way they so effortlessly brought forth their characters’ vulnerable and lonely inner cores – they gradually develop a warm, quirky and endearing relationship. The 90’s setting – with its analogue devices, handicam, and electronic music played on Walkman and old car stereos – along with the captivating juxtaposition of claustrophobic interiors with harsh exteriors, made it all the more joyous, melancholic and nostalgic.

 

 

 

 

 

Director: Juho Kuosmanen

Genre: Drama/Comedy/Romance/Road Movie

Language: Finnish/Russian

Country: Finland

The Other Side of Hope [2017]

While Aki Kaurismaki, forever the poet of Helsinki’s proletariat and a melancholic romantic too, isn’t as prolific anymore – having made just 3 films in the 17 years since his masterful The Man Without a Past – his palette remains as quintessentially droll as ever. The Other Side of Hope, along with his beautiful previous film Le Havre (made 6 years earlier), constitutes what might be his Refugee (or, Dockyard) Trilogy. The only possible cures, for a world torn apart by xenophobia, bigotry, intolerance and prejudices, are perhaps the individual expressions of empathy and compassion – a maxim made even starker by the European migrant crisis – and this formed the crux of both these wry, darkly funny, humanist films. It follows the threads of two men looking to start over – for Waldemar (Sakari Kuosmanen), a middle-aged, laconic travelling salesman who decides to leave his wife and start a new profession by purchasing a struggling restaurant, the journey is largely personal; however, for Khaled (Sherwan Haji), a young Syrian guy whose family was reduced to rubbles in Aleppo, and who managed to smuggle himself and his sister into Europe in the hope for an escape, only to face vicious hatred of the neo-Nazis and apathy of the officials, the journey has been gut-wrenching. When Khaled, on the run after his request for asylum is denied, bumps into Waldemar, the latter displayes an extraordinary act of kindness, along with small mercies by his working class staff (including the straight-faced Kaurismaki regulars Ilkka Koivula and Janne Hyytiäinen). The sharp jabs at cold governmental procedures aside, the movie’s otherwise minimalism was regularly alternated with elegiac folk songs. And yes, there's a deadpan cameo by Kati Outinen.

Director: Aki Kaurismaki
Genre: Drama/Comedy/Black Comedy/Political Drama
Language: Finnish
Country: Finland

Zombie and the Ghost Train [1991]

Before Aki Kaurismaki came on his own and became the face of Finnish cinema, his elder brother Mika had already been a filmmaker of reasonable repute, only to be superseded by his younger sibling in whose launch, in a subtle note of wry irony worthy of a Kaurismaki, he had a strong hand. With its droll, deadpan and darkly humorous tale of laconic and ‘outsider’ protagonists, with a cold, wan and gloomy Helsinki forming the backdrop, Zombie and the Ghost Train, which was also Mika’s first independent production. The film tells the tale of its aptly named protagonist Zombie (Silu Seppälä), a rickety, drifting, self-destructive and music-loving guy, who doesn’t have the aptitude or inclination of leading the life of a regular Joe. He’s neither a rebel nor a non-conformist – he’s a classic elucidation of a slacker who just can’t be anyone but himself. He’s tried his hand at a number of regular professions, but to no avail. There are just two things he loves doing – playing music and drinking, and not necessarily in that order; hence, despite the best efforts of his girlfriend Marjo (Marjo Leinonen) and his best friend Harri (Matti Pellonpää), who leads a curiously titled pop-band Mulefukkers Zombie. Harri even goes as far as Istanbul to bring back Zombie who’s on a self-exile, but he’s so far down the bottle and barrel by now that both silently acknowledge to each other that he’s just beyond any hope for redemption or salvation. Despite its hilarious interludes, idiosyncratic developments and a few touches of sentimentality, the film was poignant and relentlessly downbeat with its heavy dose of alcoholism, extreme social alienation and a seemingly unstoppable march towards self-ruination.

Director: Mika Kaurismaki
Genre: Black Comedy/Urban Drama
Language: Finnish/Turkish/English
Country: Finland

Lights in the Dusk [2006]

Lights in the Dusk, the final installment in Kaurismaki’s ‘Finland Trilogy’ aka ‘Loser Trilogy’ (a number of his other films too could easily be clubbed with it), was a typically dour, droll and deadpan portrayal of the heartbreak and loneliness, particularly for the working class, in a cold and heartless metropolis. Though filled with decidedly dark tone, bleak plot developments, deadpan humour and bitter ironies that the protagonist is nearly always at the receiving end of, the director’s deep-set humanism and empathy cannot be missed; consequently, like The Man Without A Past, which was the best of the lot, even though this relentlessly tragic film didn’t really end on a happy note, the final shot, through its fleeting indication at hopefulness and optimism, is sure to leave one with a smile. Kostinen (Janne Hyytiäinen) is a lonely and introverted night security-guard at a sprawling shopping complex in Helsinki with an infinite hope for a better future, despite the seemingly inescapable hole he’s stuck in. Consequently when, inexplicably, an attractive blonde lady (Maria Järvenhelmi) approaches him with the offer of love, he gets into it with no questions asked, oblivious of the fact that she’s the moll of a gangster (Ilkka Koivula) and intends to use him and then discard him like an empty cigarette pack. All this while he never realizes that an equally lonely vendor of hot dogs (Maria Heiskanen) might just be holding a flame for him. Though forever at the receiving end of unfairness, Aki managed to strike a delicate balance between pathos and cruelty, with the soft colour palettes and melancholic musical interludes making this wry black comedy quietly affecting.

Director: Aki Kaurismaki
Genre: Drama/Black Comedy/Social Satire
Language: Finnish
Country: Finland