This is my third movie from idiosyncratic Finnish
filmmaker Ari Kaurismaki that
I have seen in as many weeks, and I am developing quite a taste for his work.
This one is the last in his ‘loser’ trilogy and deals with loneliness and is
heart wrenching sad.
It is the tale of a Security Guard who is ignored by
his work colleagues, has no friends, and leads a sad solitary life. One day totally out of the blue, he is
chatted up a striking blond well-dressed woman who insists that he asks her out
on a date. He has no basic conversation skills and the evening is stilted and
awkward but the woman doesn’t really mind at all as she is not actually after stealing his heart, but just his keys and security codes to help facilitate a robbery.
He still thinks it could be love, so takes the rap for
the burglary, serves his time in jail, and once free again he catches sight of
his Date and then he realizes that he actually was set up. He attacks her Boss, and ends up getting
beaten up for his trouble.
Come to think about it , Koistinen seems to get beaten
up a lot in this movie. It’s particularly bad when he tries to rescue a dog
that has been tied up outside a bar without water for weeks by three oafish
thugs.
All the Kaurismaki movies I have watched have characters with the same dour deadpan expressions, as all the emotion and feelings
come from within. They are completely
fascinating and totally engrossing. And I’ve
learnt that no matter how contemporary the story is, Kaurismaki, with his great eye for detail, gives them a very
definite period/old fashioned feel to all his movies. He is also somewhat of a whiz choosing his soundtracks too.
I’m grateful that the Miami Beach Cinemateque saw fit to run this Retrospective as I may have never ‘discovered’ my latest passion/obsession. Kaurismaki’s work is definitely an acquired taste … and I cannot wait to seek out more.
P.S. Mr. Kaurismaki likes to work with the same actors and the same dog. Laike is in almost all of his movies.
★★★★★★★★
★★★★★★★★
