Fallen Leaves (2023)

CinemaSerf

7.0

Dec 5, 2023

There's a lovely scene in this film where "Holappa" (Jussi Vatanen) and his mate are in an Helsinki karaoke bar staffed by a motionless barman who looks like he's straight out a zombie movie! Talking of zombie movies, the story follows the lives of this fellow and of "Ansa" (Alma Pöysti) whose first date at the local "Ritz" cinema is ecactly that - unlikely fodder for a burgeoning romance - even if their post film chat afterwards is under the gaze of a "Brief Encounter" poster. She has recently been fired for pinching some out-of-date food from the supermarket in which she worked. He's been fi…

It’s not much of a secret that the worldview of Finnish society can be more than a little bleak. At the same time, though, it also possesses an understatedly campy, eminently whimsical quality that comes in stark contrast to this otherwise-dour outlook. And this makes for a combination of traits that can be somewhat puzzling to fathom, especially to outsiders. That’s the quirky social conundrum that writer-director Aki Kaurismäki seeks to capture in his latest offering, a wry comedy-drama focused on the lives of two lonely, lovelorn working class Helsinki residents (Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen)…

German-Finnish drama / romance by the director Aki Kaurismäki, continuation of his Proletariat series, which was originally planned as a trilogy and already includes Shadows in Paradise (1986), Ariel (1988), and The Match Factory Girl (1990). With simple stories in a stylized Helsinki that seems to be stopped at the end of the 80´s on purpose (although your hear on the radio about the current Russia and Ukraine War, and see a 2024 calendar) it tells about the love story in simple lines of melancholy about two workers, a construction area man and a woman that worked on supermarkets and fact…