{"id":2453,"date":"2024-02-14T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-14T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2453"},"modified":"2024-02-11T16:09:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-11T05:09:31","slug":"movie-review-fallen-leaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2453","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Fallen Leaves"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Finland is a very dry country. Droll, if you will. This, at least, is the impression that writer-director Aki Kaurism\u00e4ki (The Other Side of Hope<\/em>) would like you to get from Fallen Leaves<\/em>, the fourth film in his Proletariat<\/em> trilogy. The last one was in 1990, and he claims to have retired in 2017, so you know he\u2019s been cooking this up for a while. This is the sort of movie that you see if you enjoy two people coming together very slowly over a relatively short run time, filled with tiny delights and small victories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ansa (Alma P\u00f6ysti, Tove<\/em>) is a supermarket worker reduced to eating expired food; Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is an industrial site worker who drinks on the job. A couple of chance encounters between the two sparks a mutual interest between the two, but between Ansa not leaving her name and Holappa instantly losing her number, will chase ever allow them to meet again?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fallen Leaves <\/em>is a tight 81 minutes. It almost completely lacks event, and when something happens it\u2019s so understated that you almost have to ask if it actually did. This is all part of the charm, as the dialogue is delivered in complete deadpan, declarative statements with almost no emotion backing them up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Near equal time is given to Ansa and Holappa, but it\u2019s easy to think that P\u00f6ysti is the star of the movie. She is a woman without much, but she knows exactly what she wants and how much she will tolerate. Her ambitions may be small, but you want a win for her; it\u2019s hard not to respect a woman who knows her rights and won\u2019t allow herself to be cowed by petty tyrants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Vatanen\u2019s part, he gradually makes you care about Holappa\u2019s quiet tragedy. What is initially played for laughs eventually becomes apparent as a legitimate problem. Most importantly, when all hope seems lost for the whatever number time, you still want things to work out for him, and you want Ansa to find him again if she can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fallen Leaves <\/em>sounds like it should be depressing by any metric, but it is actually very gently funny. Holappa\u2019s wingman Huotari (Janne Hyyti\u00e4inen, The Other Side of Hope<\/em>) has an entire sideline at karaoke where he argues with Ansa\u2019s wingwoman Liisa (Nuppu Koivu, The Other Side of Hope<\/em>) about how his face lies about his age. Holappa is accused of being four minutes late for the third time in a week by his boss, and the only retort, handily ignored, is \u201cit\u2019s Monday\u201d. The way that Ansa and Holappa dance around each other is so otherworldly that you have to wonder if they\u2019re aliens, but of course it\u2019s not that sort of movie. It is <\/em>the sort of movie that features deadly earnest karaoke delivered in multiple languages, and a repertory theatre playing the most sincerely random films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kaurism\u00e4ki litters the film with rituals and signifiers that mean everything and nothing, and highlights the drudgery of piecemeal work that his characters subsist on. It\u2019s a world devoid of dignity, but Ansa, at least, won\u2019t surrender her self-respect. Any despair that it makes you feel is counterbalanced by the thought that maybe some light will shine into our fated pair\u2019s lives, and you have to have faith in Kaurism\u00e4ki that it will. It\u2019s not a vocally political movie, but it definitely is a statement piece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s difficult to say if a Kaurism\u00e4ki film would be thought of as odd in his native country or if that\u2019s just what Finland is like. To an international viewer, it\u2019s the eternal question. Fallen Leaves <\/em>is a delightful oddball, an unorthodox love story between two nice people barely scraping by on the economical underbelly of their country. Its quiet, lackadaisical pace won\u2019t appeal to everyone, but Kaurism\u00e4ki has cultivated such a specific feel to this movie that is intoxicating if you get swept into it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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