Fallen Leaves overview: Aki Kaurismäki delivers a compact, life-affirming triumph in one of many best movies of the yr

The World is at warfare, individuals are dying. There’s loneliness and grief in persevering with to get up, take the morning bus to work, coming again dwelling after the day. This is the every day journey of two loners Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Hollapa (Jussi Vatanen), till their lives intersect in Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves. Funny, achingly unhappy and life-affirming all inside 81 minutes, Fallen Leaves- which gained the Jury Prize at Cannes- is a compact jewel of a movie, one which makes you wish to stick with its characters a bit of longer after its over. (Also learn: Paradise overview: A wedding is put to check in Prasanna Vithanage’s tightly managed drama)

A still from Fallen Leaves.
A nonetheless from Fallen Leaves.

The premise

Set in Helsinki, the capital of Finland, we first meet Ansa as she goes about her day as a grocery store employee, returns dwelling to her kitchen desk the place the radio airs miserable news concerning the warfare in Ukraine. Soon, she will likely be caught stealing expired meals. Meanwhile, Hollapa is dropping his job on the development website someplace close to by. He struggles to stay sober. Why, asks his pal Huotari (a scene-stealing Janne Hyytiainen), and Hollapa says as a result of he is depressed. The two pals resolve to go to a karaoke bar, the place Hollapa locks eyes with Hansa for the primary time. Both are immediately drawn to one another of their shy, benumbed and shared fatigue for the world- and should meet once more.

Precise and minimalist in design

Fallen Leaves weaves the destinies of those two souls in amusing, unconfirmed methods. Working with cinematographer Timo Salminen and manufacturing designer Ville Grönroos, the director invitations his viewers within the brightly colored, minimalist areas the place these characters lead deep interior lives. No phrases are required for them to convey how their existential ennui fill the air. The rhythm and precision with which Kaurismaki’s mise-en-scène unfolds is a factor of endless delight- little exposition and extra close-ups, with the specificity of time and house as essential as ever. There’s a predicament which informs this movie, balanced with a delicate detachment. Not a lot has modified for the working class residents in lots of international locations, even in any case these years. Kaurismäki treats them with dignity and craving. “I’ve the time, however not the cash,” is how Ansa states it best.

Final thoughts

With so little to elaborate, Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen still give wonderfully nuanced performances. Ansa and Hollapa are a screen couple for the ages; these are two people who try and fail, but never stop trying another time. Vatanen in particular, is hilarious and endearing throughout: that small smile on his face which appears after talking to Ansa is one of the most moving scenes I have seen at the cinema this year.

With plenty of hat tips to classic films from Robert Bresson and Charlie Chaplin, Fallen Leaves finds Aki Kaurismäki at his most accessible, romantic best. At the Dharamshala International Film Festival, where the film played to a packed house on the closing day, the audience cheered hard the moment its sublime denouement arrived. Kaurismäki has created a precious film, so full of life and feeling; one that is just able to scratch the corner of darkness to find hope and heart-stopping beauty.

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Source web site: www.hindustantimes.com

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