Finnish master and long-time European festival favourite Aki Kaurismaki returns after a six year absence with Fallen Leaves, which won the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes competition, a lovely, and well-deserved, way to welcome him back. It’s a short, sweet, and gorgeously but unshowily shot Helsinki-set love story that, of course, is packed with Kaurismaki’s trademark deadpan humour, but also shot through with a real sense of sweetness and kindness as two people meandering towards middle age finally find real connection.
We first meet our heroes at their respective soul-numbing places of work. Ansa (Alma Poysti) stacks shelves at a local supermarket, while Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) has some sort of industrial cleaning gig that is ruining his health even faster than his alcoholism and chain smoking. Both are victims of miserable corporate penny-pinching; Ansa is fired for taking home an expired sandwich and Holappa sustains an on-the-job injury, and then also a firing, thanks to a faulty but unreplaced piece of equipment. It’s a sad milieu – in Kaurismaki’s hands, Helsinki seems like the smallest and most boring city in the world – but never truly grim, especially once the pair meet one another. Their first date is a lot of fun, putting Kaurismaki in conversation with his cinematic kindred spirits as they head to the cinema to watch a Jim Jarmusch film.
There’s an instantly lovable chemistry between them, helped along by two immensely charming lead performances that radiate movie star charisma beneath the many layers of disappointment that life has heaped upon these two. They ground Kaurismaki’s otherwise slightly surreal tone that keeps Fallen Leaves unstuck in time – radio reports of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine keeps the action set in 2022/23, but, otherwise, this version of Helsinki could well be stuck in the ‘60s. For all that it might be an easy way out, story-wise (a few of the problems here would be solved instantly by a mobile phone), it’s still nice to have the central romance feel so analogue, a great fit for these rather left-behind characters.
Both Ansa and Holappa get laughs as well as pathos, though the lion’s share of the funny stuff goes to Janne Hyytiainen as Holappa’s older best friend Huotari, whose near-cartoonish handsomeness disguises a consistently amusing insecurity about his age and good-not-great singing ability. Kaurismaki shoots all his cast beautifully, with wonderful lighting and colours in every frame – this Helsinki might be unexciting, but it’s certainly never less than pretty to look at.
Fallen Leaves is definitely rather slight, but at just over 80 minutes that’s hardly a big problem, leaving you as it does on a gentle high with a sappy but well-earned finale. With the Hollywood actors’ strike still dragging on and finally making itself felt in a newly desolate blockbuster release slate, it’s the indies and foreign films that are going to have to step up – if they can all be as accessible and enjoyable as Fallen Leaves, we’ll be more than alright.
Jack Blackwell – Film Reviews 