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The Match Factory Girl – 1990 Kaurismäki
- The third film in the Proletariat trilogy with Shadows in Paradise in 1986 and Ariel in 1988– Kati Outinen (a staple
in Kaurismäki films) as the lead- Iris- the title character
- Brisk—68 minutes- again I see some Fassbinder here— the harsh world
around the protagonist just pulverizing these characters and a very nice construction
of a frame near the end at the planetarium place like Fassbinder would create
in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul especially
- Minimal Jarmusch or Ozu in camera movement or style- when asked
about the lack of camera movement I guess Kaurismäki said that’s a lot of work
when you’re hungover (drinking heavy is a big motif (actually Ozu had that too-
haha))
- Iris doesn’t speak at all until the 14 minute mark (to order a
beer)- silent cinema
- A the opposite of a Cinderella like fairy-tale, grim (and this
one doesn’t have the sunshine at the end)—she lives in bomb shelter looking
house, father calls her a whore, slaps her, the guy she sleeps with is an
all-timer of a villain
- Opens with montage of factory like a documentary- making of
matches – blue collar minimalism—desaturation of story and style is big for Kaurismäki
- She’s getting ready to go out and make some sort of interaction
with the world with the Tiananmen Square atrocity on the news
- She receives one gut punch after another
- I laughed out loud at her sobbing to the Marx Brothers film, I
also laughed a little when her father said “I hope you find another home” as
she lays there in the hospital after getting hit by a car as he hands her an
orange and she peels and eats it. “Rat poison” and the clerk says “Small or
large” and she says “Large”—very black black comedy
- The films are best viewed in a series—formal works– Kaurismäki
is a voice- consistent themes
- The frame at 59 minutes is Fassbinder again- one of Kaurismäki
finest like the kiss in the doorway in Shadows
in Paradise—a total wow—and he knows
it holding on it for one minute and then cutting to a flower after that scene.
It is easily the film’s high-water mark and the reason it’s a HR—moving
- Fades to black during the scenes like Jarmusch often did
- A Highly Recommend film
Drake2020-07-03T10:28:09+00:00
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