Fallen Leaves movie review: A steely film with a syrupy centre, Aki Kaurismäki’s festival darling is the latest must-watch on MUBI – The Indian Express
Primarily remaking his breakout 1986 movie Shadows in Paradise, the Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki revisits acquainted themes in Fallen Leaves, one of many most interesting pageant hits of final yr, now out on MUBI. The dialogue is economical, the lighting evocative and the temper sullen, as two lonely 40-somethings cross paths in a Helsinki that feels directly modern and achingly old style.
It’s a world of trams and traumas, transistors and transient jobs; a world the place fixed updates in regards to the ongoing battle in Ukraine might be gathered not by way of the web, however on nightly radio broadcasts. Performed by Alma Pöysti, Ansa works at a grocery store that expressly forbids her from pocketing expired meals, even when it’s to sneakily feed a homeless man who rummages of their trash. In one of many movie’s earliest scenes, she will get fired for making an attempt to steal a sandwich destined for the dustbin.
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On the native watering gap one night after work, Ansa runs into Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), an equally depressing alcoholic who works at a development web site. Holappa is trapped in an infinite circle of indignities — he’s depressed as a result of he drinks, and he drinks as a result of he’s depressed. Unsurprisingly, he’s had simply as a lot bother holding down a job as he has had sustaining a romantic relationship. However fuelled by liquid braveness and nothing to lose, he asks Ansa out on a date to, the place else, the flicks.
At simply 80 minutes lengthy, Fallen Leaves is troublesome to classify, particularly into one thing as arbitrary as style. Some may discover it hilarious, however the humour is drier than the throat of a schoolchild summoned to the principal’s workplace. Others may discover it unbearably melancholic, and even hopelessly romantic. It will be fairly troublesome, nevertheless, to be unaffected by its discreet charms.
Ansa and Holappa are clearly attracted to one another, however their makes an attempt to safe one thing as fundamental as happiness and companionship are consistently thwarted by life’s informal cruelties. When Holappa loses Ansa’s quantity, as an example, not as soon as do you marvel why he can’t merely supply it on-line. As an alternative, a matter of this magnitude can solely be addressed by exhibiting up each night on the film theatre they went to on their first date, and hoping that Ansa has the identical concept. Reader, she does.
Fallen Leaves is crammed with moments of such unabashed romance — it’s, in any case, a steely image with a syrupy centre — that it’s totally doable so that you can be momentarily overwhelmed. The film empathises with Ansa and Holappa for the sorry hand that they’ve been dealt, however crucially, it by no means feels sorry for them. A fan of Hollywood melodramas — the filmmaker has lengthy been perfecting a famously retro aesthetic — Kaurismäki can’t assist however permit moments of sweeping emotion to flood the barren lives of his characters. In that approach, he’s loads like Wes Anderson — incapable of turning a blind eye to human struggling, however too delicate to stare at it straight.
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A scene wherein Ansa and Holappa sleep individually in solitude — her on her single mattress, him on a park bench — is heartbreaking. As is the movie’s most memorable second: a single shot of Ansa binning a dinner plate that she’d bought mere hours earlier. It’s not possible to resolve what’s sadder, that she hadn’t been in a position to afford additional crockery, or her resignation to the truth that she most likely doesn’t want it. For a film that depends a lot on the faces of its actors, it’s attention-grabbing to look at Kaurismäki’s reluctance to shut in on Ansa’s face at this second. It’s virtually as if he needs to respect her privateness as she offers with this defeat.
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And when he can’t, they will all the time flip to chain-smoking and a chart-busting soundtrack. Kaurismäki isn’t serious about why or how Ansa and Holappa received right here, however he’s definitely going to do all the pieces in his energy to assist them stage an escape.
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Fallen Leaves
Director – Aki Kaurismäki
Solid – Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen
Score – 4/5
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