Ansa (Alma Pöysti), a hardened single woman who lives alone in Helsinki, meets the eye of Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), a taciturn worker in a karaoke bar. Both eke out a living from job to job, exploited in the supermarket and on construction sites, in a context of galloping inflation and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Despite the grayness, their faces light up when they come into contact with each other. They are the dignified but clumsy people left behind, as invested as they are penniless. She buys cutlery in preparation for a romantic dinner. He borrows a jacket and buys her flowers. But there are obstacles on the road to happiness, starting with Holappa’s alcoholism.
Jury prize at the most recent Cannes Film Festival, Dead Leaves by Aki Kaurismäki is a very beautiful film of sadness and melancholy, but also of romantic hope. A slightly offbeat proletarian romance, as is the Finn’s cinema, announced as the sequel to his trilogy on the working class of the 1980s (Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, The Match Girl).
In his typical, unadorned style, the filmmaker of The Man Without a Past and Le Havre plays with the codes of romantic tragicomedy, multiplying the misunderstandings that would have modified the trajectory and destiny of his protagonists. “If only she had known, if only he had turned around,” etc.
Obviously, with Kaurismäki, we dive into black humor, not candy pink, a thousand miles from melodrama. We laugh heartily at funny situations and dialogues, but we are also touched by these thwarted loves and captured by the social portrait that the author-filmmaker paints.
“I’m depressed because I drink too much,” Holappa told a colleague and friend. —Why do you drink too much? his friend asks him. — Because I’m depressed. »
Dead Leaves shows the other side of the often idyllic postcard that we are presented with from Finland. Like the seedy bars with exotic names where his characters meet. Kaurismäki’s production is, as always, sober and minimalist, with static shots which add to this deadpan humor which is reminiscent of the cinema of Swede Roy Andersson.
Kaurismäki enjoys making nods to the seventh art. His final shot is inspired by Chaplin’s Modern Times. In a scene at the cinema, whose facade is decorated with film posters by Godard or Visconti, we present Jim Jarmusch’s zombie film, The Dead Don’t Die. Leaving the screening, a spectator evokes similarities with Bresson’s cinema…
Dead Leaves is presented in the original language with French subtitles, which is ideal for not losing any of the poetry of Finnish or the sardonic delivery of the actors, all on point. The sets are retro, like the vaguely rockabilly aesthetic that we often find in Kaurismäki’s cinema, which once again gives pride of place to music (notably the famous Prévert song which gave the film its title ). The story also seems timeless, even if it is contemporary (Ansa is upset by the news of the destruction of Mariupol).
In 82 tightly packed minutes, a rarity in cinema today, this film can be appreciated as an absolutely charming offering against the grain.