 |
| Writer/director Aki Kaurismäki |
ARIEL A Finland (73 mi) 1988
Two Finns are in a bar. After hours of silence, one man raises his glass to the other and says, “Cheers.” The other man snaps back, “I didn’t come here for conversation.” —Traditional Finnish joke, Lana Wilson from Senses of Cinema, July 9, 2009, Kaurismäki, Aki - Senses of Cinema
Aki Kaurismäki is one of Finland’s greatest revelations, responsible (along with his older brother Mika) for jumpstarting the nation’s floundering film industry in the 1980’s when they astonishingly accounted for a third of the country’s film output, becoming key figures in the development of Finnish cinema. His minimalist style owes much to the concise visual precision of Robert Bresson, while his gritty tone comes from Rainer Werner Fassbinder, showing a sympathetic preoccupation with down-on-their-luck, working class loners encumbered by soulless jobs in bleak surroundings, driven to outrageous acts by an oppressive society, becoming dark comedies that are characterized by laconic humor, detached irony, and smoking. Many of his early films are centered in the Finnish capital of Helsinki, taking a cynical and darkly comedic look at the country, which, perhaps unsurprisingly, is how many Finns would look at it as well. Despite the grimness of his protagonist’s lives, deeply entrenched in a social realist cityscape that has no equivalent in real life, Kaurismäki’s films can also offer a dreamlike avenue of escape through a redemptive power of love. Kaurismäki began as a punk-rocker, an individualist and a member of a strong subculture, having worked as a bricklayer, dishwasher, postman, machinist, and film critic before collaborating with his elder brother when he co-wrote and starred in their first film project THE LIAR (Valehtelija) in 1981. Both brothers hung out with other punk rock musicians, placing them in starring roles in their early films, which expressed a marked disdain for authority, often mocking the conservative rigidity of the prevailing Social Democratic Party of Finland, the nation’s oldest active political party, revealing lives that had no future, yet there was a darkly humorous and cool veneer that in some mysterious way emboldened a curious sense of optimism. Kaurismäki is a visionary well ahead of his time, as his deadpan humor, heavily ironic scenarios, and incorporation of eclectic musical soundtracks laid a foundation that was adapted by the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Wes Anderson, stalwarts of American independent cinema, who have continued to build on that legacy over the past few decades. Like Bresson’s films, Kaurismäki relies upon understated acting and long scenes in which the camera barely moves, allowing plot developments that are slow, emotionally resonant, and ultimately realistic. Recurring objects, settings, and animals appear in Kaurismäki films, like jukeboxes, old cars, harbors, dumps, dive bars, dark glasses, and dogs, to name a few, with rudimentary rock ‘n’ roll heard seeping into the frame, yet you also may see Ryijy rugs on the walls, Iittala beer mugs on the table, and hear Finnish postwar tango music playing at the dance hall, evoking a sense of nostalgia for the postwar past for many Finnish viewers, while also exerting a warmly infectious humanism. In a land of dark winters and eternal summer sunlight, the Kaurismäki brothers helped establish the Midnight Sun Film Festival in 1986, set in Sodankylä 120 km north of the Arctic Circle in the northeast part of the Lapland, taking advantage of the endless summer sun, showing films 24-hours per day for five consecutive days. The Festival policy and guidelines were created by the Kaurismäki brothers, as well as festival co-founder and Finnish film historian Peter von Bagh. Despite a reputation for suicides, depression, alcoholism, and cold, dark winters, Finland is listed at #1 in the rankings of happiest countries in the world, according to World Happiness Report 2022, followed by Denmark and Iceland, with other Nordic countries Sweden and Norway coming in at #7 and #8, scoring high for education, health, economic dynamism, and political stability, while also known for exhibiting an absurdist sense of humor. Disgruntled with the effects of modernization swallowing up his favorite bars and café’s across Helsinki, Aki and his wife moved to Portugal in 1989, living there for half the year before venturing back to Helsinki in the summers where he is based in the small southwestern Finnish town of Karkilla, still making the 3 to 5-day drive in his battered blue Volvo, “When I was young, with my Cadillac and lousy roads, it took three days. Now, with good roads, at my age it takes five.”
Because the film is so depressing and so bleak, and the people onscreen so hopeless and pathetic, it takes a while before you realize this is a comedy. Exhibiting an eclectic influence, Aki Kaurismäki's Top 10 | Current - The Criterion Collection, Kaurismäki grew up in an era when Finnish theaters were screening discarded Hollywood gladiator films from the 50’s, developing an insatiable appetite for watching films at the Finnish Film Archive, where his films are equally diverse and unpredictable, from the hilariously romantic Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana (Pidä huivista kiinni, Tatjana) (1994), wretchedly miserablist Lights in the Dusk (Laitakaupungin Valot) (2006), lushly Chaplinesque Le Havre (2011), to the gloomily optimistic The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) (2017). This second installment and most emotionally affecting of Kaurismäki’s Working-Class or Proletariat Trilogy, coming after SHADOWS OF PARADISE (1986), is “Dedicated to the memory of Finnish reality,” and may actually be the director’s favorite, having so proclaimed in a random YouTube interview, Aki Kaurismäki 2015 interview - YouTube (4:57), his first film that established an international reputation, listed by the Village Voice as the #9 Best Film for 1989, named Best Foreign Language Film of 1990 by the National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film, shot with a camera purchased from Ingmar Bergman, which also includes THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST (2002), both offering a strong sense of Nordic light and darkness in their outdoor scenes, with recurring fades to black becoming a signature trademark. Exhibiting theatrical parody and documentary realism in equal proportions, the film tells the story of Taisto (Turo Pajala), a coal miner working with his father somewhere in the Laplands until the mine inexplicably shuts down, revealing a dreary scene in a nearby café where his father takes his own life, Aki Kaurismäki - Ariel - Very Black, Dark Comedy Moment - kaurismaki YouTube (1:28), but not before handing Taisto the keys to his vintage 1962 white Cadillac convertible (1962 Cadillac Series 62 | Classic Cars for Sale), turning into an existential road movie where the protagonist encounters a series of misadventures that grow more progressively grim. Driving to Helsinki in search of work, the Cadillac is a distinctively American vehicle seen passing through the Finnish landscape, shown from every conceivable angle to fetishize its design, made even more comic as he’s driving with the top down (supposedly stuck) in the wintry snow, an utterly absurd depiction of enduring the brutally harsh cold of the north, a bleak metaphor for escaping a provincial life of inertia and economic freefall, and an iconic opening that sets the stage for what follows. Stopping on the road for a hamburger (with a Coca Cola sign out front), Taisto is distracted by a couple of con artists who cold-cock him by smashing a bottle over his head, stealing all his money and leaving him destitute, seen the next morning pulling up to the local docks and standing in line where he’s fortunate enough to be picked for a day’s labor, earning enough for a bed in a Salvation Army shelter. What stands out, however, is the realistic depiction of hard work, with truly mesmerizing shots of machinery by Kaurismäki’s longtime cinematographer Timo Salminen, where it’s not an abstraction, as you actually get a feel for the hazards and difficulty of the work, including a terrific overhead tracking shot of factory machinery scored to Casey Bill Weldon W P A Blues – YouTube (3:17). Spare and exaggeratedly minimalist, playing out like a social-realist farce, Kaurismäki’s characters say few words, as the performances are restrained, showing little emotion delivering their lines, revealing a sly, deadpan perspective that’s informed as much by a subversion of cinematic convention as it is by an appreciation for the more sardonic side of human existence, where any signs of mainstream cinema are nowhere to be found. Among the more amusing revelations are small moments, such as when Taisto realizes the Cadillac key chain is hanging from the internal mechanism from a music box that plays the socialist anthem The Internationale "Интернационал" - Russian Version YouTube (3:58), or another when he steals a framed portrait from city hall of ex-President Urho Kaleva Kekkonen, the longest serving Finnish President (1956–1982), to hang on the wall alongside his bedmate’s portrait of Christ in the shelter.
Despite the countless traumas and depressions his characters face, Kaurismäki’s nostalgic depiction of Finland is actually fairly idealized and romantic, clinging to the past in the face of modernization. By setting the film in and amongst the remnants of his preferred old-fashioned locations, he is memorializing these places on film, using nostalgia to preserve his own perfect vision of Finland. Despite various claims that he is not a nationalist, suggesting films are universal, his habits suggest otherwise, as he only drinks the local brew, with an affinity for drinking Lapin Culta beer. Kaurismäki neatly depicts a spanning of reality and fantasy through a distinctive use of color, using incidental shots of snow along the banks and ice in the water around the docks, while also accentuating an endlessly blue sky, revealing an uninterrupted blue and white color scheme. Alternatively, instead of intentionally using these colors in a prescribed political context, Kaurismäki reflects colors that naturally occur in the city and landscape surrounding his characters, colors that are representative of the blue and white Finnish flag, bringing a level of reality and authenticity back into the otherwise increasingly fantastical environment he creates. In a stroke of fate, Taisto avoids a parking ticket by asking the meter maid out to dinner, meeting Irmeli (Susanna Haavisto) in an opportune moment, as she quickly quits her job to go out with him, having a thoroughly unpretentious meal before spending the night, declaring they will stay together forever, expressed through a handshake even before they introduce themselves, like a simplified, comic book version of reality, yet told in a thoroughly deadpan style without a hint of emotion. Another revelation is the discovery that she has a son, Riku (Eetu Hilkamo), who appears used to spending long periods of time alone, displaying a fondness for comic books, wordlessly seen together the next morning with Taisto eating knäckebröd crispbread and coffee, evoking the simplicity of a Finnish breakfast, Ariel - Finnish Love YouTube (5:53). Later they all take a windswept ride in the convertible and head to the shoreline for a day in the sun, their future seemingly secure as the radio plays a hidden gem, “I lost my dreams and everything in life, I lost my dreams because of you, Now I’m lost in my dreams, I hide from the world, I look out the window and watch the rain come down.” Yet this all comes together in rapid fashion, falling in love with a single mother who works four jobs, while he, ironically, still cannot find one for himself, booted out of the shelter for having no money, forced to spend chilly nights in his car, leaving him desperate enough to sell his car. As Taisto sits in a café bar attempting to smoke a discarded cigarette butt in an ashtray while mourning his losses, one notices the bar has a bright red color palette, seemingly providing comfort in a place where one tends to retreat, offering refuge to the nomadic loners Kaurismäki repeatedly focuses on. As he looks out of the window, he notices the man who first robbed him when he arrived in the city, chasing him down in an underground station, grabbing the knife the man pulls out while holding him at bay, and in the ensuing scuffle police arrest him for armed assault and attempted robbery, seen appearing before a judge where his sentence is a foregone conclusion, read in the most nondescript fashion in a lengthy court ruling that drones on endlessly. In contrast to the warm colors of the previous scene, the stark, bare, and characterless courtroom thrusts the audience into an uncomfortable reality, intentionally void of any and all sensuality, perhaps representative of the modernized Helsinki that Kaurismäki finds so hard to bear. From the second he’s sentenced to jail, we know there will be no more lingering in moodily lit bars or cruising around in his convertible, as the joy associated with the nostalgic, timeless activities of freedom has been cut short by a cruel reality, distinctively marked by a disparity of color and barren atmosphere in the courtroom.
Made during a time when 20 percent of Finns were likely to vote Communist in an election, the country’s socialist economy in the 80’s was rapidly moving towards increased capitalism, where this film reflects a collision course of collateral damage. Kaurismäki depicts a bitterly disillusioned Finnish society with a stylishly subversive romantic idealism, reserving an imaginary refuge with a surprising amount of tenderness, where a central theme is preserving the family unit, using Olavi Virta’s tangos and Rauli Badding Somerjoki’s melancholic songs to add emotional resonance. Perhaps Kaurismäki’s inherent interest in the working classes and down-and-outs of Finland is because their world is so far away from the materialistic, consumer driven lifestyle that powered the economic changes in Finland towards modernization. In the mid-80’s, the industrial sector of the Finnish economy diminished in importance, yet banking was deregulated, making credit widely available. State-owned companies began to privatize and foreign investment flowed into the economy for the first time, a trend that continues to this day. For someone like Taisto, it was a time of change and uncertainty, as the economic transformation left him living on the fringe, unable to find work, becoming a portrait of alienation and outsiderism, while Irmeli was forced to work four different jobs to get by (meter maid, hotel housekeeper, slaughterhouse meat packer, and bank night guard), having to pay off the debt for the modern furniture she purchased on credit. So when he and Irmeli imagine a future together, it can be anywhere in the world, suddenly given a global context, as nothing is certain when imagining their idea of “home.” Once the state has incarcerated Taisto, they effectively negate his identity, stripping him of all freedoms. In this way, they are both reduced to outsiders, or exiles, a couple having no place in the existing society, as their lives reflect the other side of prosperity. Upon entering prison, he meets Mikkonen (Matti Pellonpää) in a wordless exchange that reveals everything, both suddenly having to recalibrate their existence, Ariel (1988) - Prison scene YouTube (1:19). Exhibiting an extremely economical style of filmmaking, in Kaurismäki’s world, no words are spoken by the characters for minutes at a time, while overall the aesthetic accentuates long takes, where conversation is limited to brief utterances or fleeting exchanges, as speech may come from televisions and movie screens or radios and jukeboxes, where music helps to provide the underlying emotional foundation and mood, with viewers getting used to things not happening, growing accustomed to the poetic variance and subtly satiric rhythms. Lacking freedom, Taisto and Mikkonen are united in a common cause, both single-mindedly aware of the grim stranglehold around their necks, forging a new identity of the wrongfully convicted man, eloquently expressed by Mikkonen’s emotional prison soliloquy, “I’m innocent, at least in God’s eyes. In a way, I did kill him, but the truth is I didn’t. Whatever, the result was the same. He died and I was sent here.” Plotting their escape, they knock out a prison guard, but take the time to place a pillow under his head before fleeing into the darkness of the night. Needing passports and instant cash to make their way out of the country, eying Mexico as the land of their dreams, they resort to criminality, yet all the built-up excitement of a planned bank heist is minimized, with the camera dramatically capturing the criminals running to the front door with guns drawn, yet then patiently waits, observing only the exterior of the bank, as the climactic robbery takes place entirely offscreen, before finding them again as they wildly run out of the bank, money slipping out of their bags, turning into a mix of crime thriller, prison drama, romance, and film noir. Of course, there are dire consequences, as we’re dealing with a shady underworld of lawlessness and villainy, where someone always has to pay a price, yet even amongst the gloom and doom there is humor to be found, Aki Kaurismäki - Ariel - Mikkonen's Death - Coolest Death Scene Ever - Matti Pellonpää Kaurismaki YouTube (3:35), with Taisto and his loved ones making their mad dash into the future, sailing off into the metaphorical sunset, accompanied by the Finnish version of a familiar Hollywood refrain, Sateenkaaren tuolla puolen(Over the rainbow)- Olavi Virta ... YouTube (3:07), becoming a surreal twist on a happy ending, recalling the glory days of Technicolor, somehow recontextualized into a new global cinema.
