Finland's official submission for Best International Film. Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki (LE HAVRE, MAN WITHOUT A PAST) has been making his special brand of movies for some four decades now. FALLEN LEAVES is one of his best. Sporting his usual low key approach with clipped dialogue and an icy wit on par with a Scandinavian winter, Kaurismäki's latest takes the basic form of Romantic Comedy, but, of course, filtered through his sensibility.
A pair of lonely-hearts, Ansa (Alma Poysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), meet 'cute' at a Karaoke bar. Naturally, it isn't love at first sight, but, soon the resistance breaks and they go through the process of coming together, obstacles getting in their way and, eventually, fall in...well, sorta... - it's a Kaurismäki film.
What works so well here is the screenplay. Kaurismäki seems to have dissected his dialogue down to its most essential words. There isn't any excess. Nothing is said that doesn't need to be*. Yet, it remains a witty delight. The actors are on the same page and deliver their lines with essential succinctness, while never interfering with their physical performances - which are also spot on. Kaurismäki's genius is that even with so little said (or done), one still gets a full sense of his characters' lives. Oh, and the whole thing, including credits, is 82 minutes long.
The 66 year old Kaurismäki pays tribute here to Directors with their own inimitable style with references to Godard, Bresson and Jarmusch (stay tuned for the final kicker, which is a perfect capstone). He also uses pop tunes as a fine accent and amusingly names mundane drab holes in the wall joints with exotic monikers like Cafe California and Cafe Buenos Aires (not to mention warmer, too!).
On the surface FALLEN LEAVES may appear 'slight' - but, it's more meaningful than at first blush. It's a delightful film from a true original.
* In many ways, FALLEN LEAVES is a perfect film to introduce those with a hesitance to subtitles, since the dialogue is so sparse.
