• Kaurismäki’s mise-en-scene arrangements get stronger and stronger as I go through his oeuvre- there’s a naturalism, or comically/ironically dingy or neo-realist in his earlier films, like the proletariat trilogy that, over time, have given way to a more Sirk/Fassbinder-like set design—gorgeous—many of these moving paintings
a carefully arranged and designed frame- a moving painting
  • A story of immigration in a very cruel world  
  • Like Kaurismäki’s Match Factory Girl in 1990 news reel footage is used to highlight some of the ugliness in the world
there’s a naturalism, or comically/ironically dingy or neo-realist in his earlier films, like the proletariat trilogy that, over time, have given way to a more Sirk/Fassbinder-like set desig
  • Jean-Pierre Léaud shows up at 48 minutes- another collaboration with Kaurismäki
  • A gorgeous medium shot at the train station at 41 minutes
  • Kaurismäki is his own voice- but I see so much Jarmusch and Roy Andersson here as well
  • Hilarious scene of André Wilms’ lead character reading aloud to his dying wife (Kaurismäki regular Kati Outinen) and they cut to the book and it’s short stories by Franz Kafka- haha
  • The honorable inspector here is almost cut from a Melville film
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a Jarmuschian tone, but sets the frame closer to Roy Andersson
  • Deadpan, drinking, live music, flowers—all the traits you come to know from decades of work from Kaurismäki
Deadpan, drinking, live music, flowers—all the traits you come to know from decades of work from Kaurismäki
  • For the first time in Kaurismäki work there’s an absolute dedication to color here in the production design- Kieslowski’s Blue – here it’s greens or an almost teal green/blue—the bar, the boat, his little home, the taxi is even this color
For the first time in Kaurismäki work there’s an absolute dedication to color here in the production design — the hospital here
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here it’s greens or an almost teal green/blue—his home here
  • Like The Man Without a Past Kaurismäki is choosing to end this happily though much of the vicious world set before it would lead you to believe it shouldn’t. I don’t think this is form breaking though- this is a fable—he tracks in on Outinen at the hospital– Wilms’ character’s good deeds have cured her
  • Highly Recommend/Must See border film