Fallen Leaves

There's a lovely scene in this film where "Holappa" (Jussi Vatanen) and his mate are in an Helsinki karaoke bar staffed by a motionless barman who looks like he's straight out a zombie movie! Talking of zombie movies, the story follows the lives of this fellow and of "Ansa" (Alma Pöysti) whose first date at the local "Ritz" cinema is ecactly that - unlikely fodder for a burgeoning romance - even if their post film chat afterwards is under the gaze of a "Brief Encounter" poster. She has recently been fired for pinching some out-of-date food from the supermarket in which she worked. He's been…

It’s not much of a secret that the worldview of Finnish society can be more than a little bleak. At the same time, though, it also possesses an understatedly campy, eminently whimsical quality that comes in stark contrast to this otherwise-dour outlook. And this makes for a combination of traits that can be somewhat puzzling to fathom, especially to outsiders. That’s the quirky social conundrum that writer-director Aki Kaurismäki seeks to capture in his latest offering, a wry comedy-drama focused on the lives of two lonely, lovelorn working class Helsinki residents (Alma Pöysti, Jussi…

German-Finnish drama / romance by the director Aki Kaurismäki, continuation of his Proletariat series, which was originally planned as a trilogy and already includes Shadows in Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988), and The Match Factory Girl (1990). With simple stories in a stylized Helsinki that seems to be stopped at the end of the 80´s on purpose (although your hear on the radio about the current Russia and Ukraine War, and see a 2024 calendar) it tells about the love story in simple lines of melancholy about two workers, a construction area man and a woman that worked on supermarkets and…

I want to say that "Fallen Leaves" and Wong Kar-wai's "In The Mood For Love" trilogy are both treating the identical theme - the challenges of love. Except that, even though the theme is the same, these two films exist in entirely different universes. Not even parallel universes, LOL! The first half of Aki Kaurismäki's presentation was side-splitting, stand-up, visual comedy. The typical dead-pan humor had sparse, but sufficient, dialog, and was delightfully sardonic. It was paced so well, and the leads excelled at the style, that by the time the third act came around, I had just become…