My newest discovery in the world of film is Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki. Now I’m hooked, having spent the weekend watching six of his films. Thanks again to the Criterion Channel for bringing this fabulous director to my attention. Kaurismäki, 64, has been making films since 1983. And he’s won plenty of awards including being nominated for best foreign film (The Man Without a Past) for the 2002 Oscars. Perhaps he’s best known for 1989’s Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Over the weekend I watched films from two of his famous trilogies and a later film. First, Kaurismäki’s films are characterized by basic plots, minimal sets, and dialogue. Often the same group of actors appear in each film. One might think this too humdrum, but the lack of dialogue and monotone character expressions draw us deeper into the characters' thinking and motives. The first film, from Kaurismäki’s Finland Trilogy, was Drifting Clouds (1996). Here, we’re introduced to what was once a fine dining restaurant in Helsinki losing its aged patrons and facing a money squeeze, resulting in closure. This displaces the staff and in particular our heroine Illona, the head waitress, played by Kati Outinen (photo), an outstanding actress and something of a Finnish cinema icon. Down and out, she applies for other jobs but can’t find one. She finally gets a job in a dive owned by a criminal, which is forced to close due to tax violations. Her apartment’s furniture is repossessed. Will things ever look up for our Illona? The next film was the aforementioned The Man Without a Past, which won the Cannes Grand Prix in 2002 but which I found the least interesting of the films. This time our hero is “M” (Markku Peltola) and Irma (the remarkable Kati Outinen again). M has been beaten up and can’t remember his past. Irma is a Salvation Army worker. But even her life is of empty purpose. Will the two be happy? In the next film, Shadows in Paradise (1986), part of Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy, a much younger Outinen plays a grocery clerk, Illona, who also loses her job, the third time that year “through no fault of my own.” She falls in love with a garbageman, Neander (Matti Pellonpää). How often are garbagemen celebrated in movies? The next film in the trilogy is Ariel (1988). Again, we have working class people who, through no faults of their own, lose jobs or are the victims of powers they can’t control. Our hero Taisto (Turo Pajala) is jailed for defending himself after being attacked. He meets a single mom, Ermelo (Susanna Haavisto), a meter maid frustrated by her job. They both long for escape. The final film in the trilogy is The Match Factory Girl (1990). Here again is the wonderful Outinen as Iris who works in, well, a match factory (fascinating how matches are made). A homely young woman who can’t meet men, one night she’s picked up in a bar. The relationship has unforeseen consequences. The last film I watched was made almost 20 years later with an entirely different cast and theme. The Other Side of Hope (2017) tells of a Syrian immigrant’s escape to Finland, a “good” country. Yet Scandinavia is and isn’t what Khaled (Sherwan Haji) expected. I mentioned that all these films are characterized by minimalist plots and dialogue, the characters often expressionless and seeming to move through life in a glum almost mechanical state. Tragedy besets them yet there is redemption, another Kaurismäki trait. And despite the overall gloominess there is humor, often dark and turning up when you least expect it. Finally, in every film, there are nods to a pre-digital past with older style radios and jukeboxes, always jukeboxes. The soundtracks? Finnish pop with beautiful mournful lyrics. And blues, mainly blues. And the lyrics punctuate the characters’ traumas. In The Match Factory Girl, our loveless Iris contemplates her future to, “When you give everything only to find disappointment.”
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