Fallen Leaves (Kuolleet lehdet)

 

Writer/director Aki Kaurismäki

The director with his dogs

The director with his lead actors

The director on the red carpet at Cannes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FALLEN LEAVES (Kuolleet lehdet)          B+                                                                          Finland  Germany  (81 mi)  2023  d: Aki Kaurismäki

I’m imprisioned here forever                                                                                                  Fences surround the graveyard too                                                                                               When my last earthly task is finally done                                                                                      You’ll still dig me deeper into the ground.

—Maustetytöt, Syntynyt Suruun Ja Puettu Pettymyksin (Born Of Sorrow And Clothed With Disappointments)

A throwback to the Aki Kaurismäki of old, this is an exaggerated working class romance fantasy that accentuates “the Finnish reality” of making the best out of a wretchedly miserable situation, a laughable alternative to Candide’s “the best of all possible worlds,” yet both Voltaire and Kaurismäki sympathetically accentuate the best humanist traditions, with Kaurismäki portraying down-on-their-luck individuals driven to outrageous acts by an oppressive society, becoming dark comedies that are characterized by laconic humor, drinking, detached irony, and smoking.  Centered in an industrial section of the Finnish capital of Helsinki, the grimness of his protagonist’s lives are deeply entrenched in a social realist cityscape that offers a dreamlike avenue of escape through a redemptive power of love.  Deeply cynical and darkly comedic, this director makes the most out of so little, where his minimalist style uses succinct and extremely well-chosen staccato language that plays out like a haiku poem, with no rehearsals and usually only one take, evoking the visual precision of Bresson and the gritty tone of Fassbinder.  Pre-occupied with working class loners encumbered by soulless jobs in bleak surroundings, they express a marked disdain for rigid authoritarian rules, where preserving one’s dignity feels paramount, typically finding refuge in dive bars, where drinking is man’s last salvation, viewed as an almost heroic retreat from the blistering conformity of their lives, where rock ‘n’ roll music provides the sardonic tone of absurdity necessary to survive the eternal gloom that permeates such an enveloping wasteland where the future always looks grim.  Premiering at Cannes where it won the Jury Prize (3rd Place), easily the shortest of all the films in competition, while also listed in the Top Ten of Cahiers du Cinéma, Film Comment, IndieWire, Time, Atlantic, Ringer, Slant, and John Waters, Movies - Year-End Lists, it is heralded as the 4th film in his earlier Proletariat Trilogy, SHADOWS IN PARADISE (1986), Ariel (1988), and THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL (1990), though it could just as easily fit into his Helsinki Trilogy, seemingly having more in common with DRIFTING CLOUDS (1996), as it navigates the debilitating despair and insurmountable hopelessness that comes from searching for happiness in low-wage, dead-end jobs that offer no benefits or job security.  Featuring two new actors who have never worked with this director before, they are new faces gracing the screen, yet both exhibit that deadpan comic timing which is an essential component of any Kaurismäki film, where an outlandish Kafkaesque absurdity drives the film with the precision of Samuel Beckett one-liners.  The sometimes shy and other times emboldened Ansa (Alma Pöysti) works a mindlessly repetitive job at a grocery store while the disillusioned yet ever stoic Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a construction worker who is seemingly inseparable from a hidden bottle of booze, a predominate theme in Kaurismäki movies, coming from a place where heavy alcohol consumption is such an entrenched part of the culture.  With documentary style precision of their respective workplaces, their dreary lives meet in a karaoke bar, each accompanied by their one and only friend, Liisa (Nuppu Koivu) and Huotari (Janne Hyytiäinen), yet the raw, pulsating rhythm from 1974 - Hurriganes Get On YouTube (3:44) announces that we’re in for a wild ride, as it lures viewers into the mindset, setting the tone for what follows.  You haven’t lived, apparently, until you’ve heard the enduring popularity of Mambo italiano YouTube (2:40) sung in Finnish.

The most-watched domestic film of the year in Finland, a first for this director, part of what makes it so special is the director’s unique ability to capture palpable modern emotions via silence and expressions rather than words, very much resembling silent films, where everyday details register as grand, meaningful cinematic gestures, while his unorthodox, jukebox soundtrack fills the screen with humorous asides that bring irony to the next level.  The maker of La Vie de Bohème (The Bohemian Life) (1992), Lights in the Dusk (Laitakaupungin Valot) (2006), Le Havre (2011), and The Other Side of Hope (Toivon tuolla puolen) (2017), though for my money it’s hard to top Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana (Pidä huivista kiinni, Tatjana) (1994), Kaurismäki is a director who takes great pleasure in filming outcasts on the fringe of society, where what stands out in each of his films is the disintegration of the working class and thwarted social advancement, shattering all aspirations for a better life, where exploitation in the workplace is the norm, leaving characters stuck in an indifferent world from which there is no escape.  Gloominess and romance typically do not mix, yet here they merge to a surprisingly comical and heartfelt effect, as both characters clearly have some sort of baggage, yet the film moves along at a snappy pace even with long scenes where the camera barely moves, giving the film a simplicity and lightheartedness which elevates it into a rare form of cinematic treasure that simply can’t be found elsewhere.  Adding to the oppressive tone are the recurring radio broadcasts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine heard on old-school radios in their homes, relying upon news reports by radio instead of television, where the monotonous nature of these messages act as historical time capsules that you immediately want to tune out, reflecting just how ordinary this worldwide calamity has become on the modern landscape, affecting people all over the world.  Let’s not forget Finland is on Russia’s border, where Putin’s troops are never far away.  Triggered by the aggression, Finland joined the NATO military alliance immediately after the invasion, while it’s important to recall that Kaurismäki once boycotted the Oscars in protest of the Iraq war.  Yet, as Susan Sontag suggests in her 2003 book-length essay, REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS Susan Sontag, people can become unresponsive to horror, even though thousands of families have lost their loved ones and their possessions forever.  Making matters worse, both characters keep losing their jobs, which is another everyday reality they have to contend with, where money is scarce, so both keep their emotions tightly in check, never knowing what tomorrow will bring.  Both appear to be diligent workers, hardly the troublemakers they are made out to be by overzealous employers, though drinking while operating heavy machinery does present definite problems, especially when management couldn’t care less about faulty equipment.  What Kaurismäki has done is craft a storyline where, through a series of mishaps, both characters find each other and lose each other and then find each other and lose each other again, both physically and emotionally, where the struggle to stay afloat resembles the sardonic tone of Roy Andersson’s existential parables in his Living Trilogy, SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR (2000), YOU, THE LIVING (2007), and A Pigeon Sat On a Branch Reflecting On Existence (En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron) (2014), yet also About Endlessness (Om det oändliga) (2019).  Kaurismäki predates Andersson, but both are in the same mold of bone-dry Nordic humor.

Holappa: I’m depressed
Huotari: Why?
Holappa: Because I drink
Huotari: Why do you drink?
Holappa: Because I’m depressed

Their first date is memorable, with Kaurismäki paying homage to his beloved cinema, as there are movie references everywhere you look.  Taking place in a sparsely populated arthouse theater, they attend a screening of Jim Jarmusch’s absurdist apocalyptic zombie movie The Dead Don't Die (2019), where one older patron hilariously explains afterwards that it reminded him of Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne) (1951), while another mentioned Godard’s Band of Outsiders (Bande à Part) (1964).  A prominently placed poster for Luchino Visconti’s Rocco and His Brothers (1960) is featured in a bar, while inside the theater posters are seen for Bresson’s L'Argent (1983) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s LE SAMOURAÏ (1967).  Outside the theater we see Finnish movie posters of David Lean’s BRIEF ENCOUNTER (1945), Sam Newfield’s LOST CONTINENT (1951), Godard’s Contempt (Le Mépris) (1963) and Pierrot le Fou (1965), something of a movie lover’s dream, FALLEN LEAVES Clip | TIFF 2023 YouTube (1:23), where you’ve got to love that rush of romantic strings from Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony, a sure sign of romance ahead.  While Ansa has a first generation Nokia flip phone, he has none, or even a permanent address, so she writes her phone number on paper, which he promptly loses, leaving him in limbo trying to find her afterwards, which is reflected not only in their disconnect from the conveniences of modern electronics, but in the bare furnishings and rather dated furniture of their apartments as well, perfectly captured in a hilarious moment when Ansa receives her electric bill in the mail.  Alienated from themselves and each other, there are so many awkward looks in this film, where characters seemingly have nothing to say, with a camera lingering to prolong the discomfort, yet that karaoke bar is filled with a stream of witty, lyrical references from the lush romanticism of Schubert’s lieder, Jussi Björling; "Ständchen" - Franz Schubert - YouTube (5:03), which is actually sung by Mika Nikander, a bass who has performed with the Finnish National Opera, to the chilly expressionless performance style of the platinum-blonde Finnish sister duo Maustetytöt - Syntynyt suruun ja puettu pettymyksin (Live 2020 ... YouTube (4:09).  Especially in context with such a heavy theme, where the weight of the world is on their shoulders, this film can feel rejuvenating in spirit, so authentically complex and intelligently composed, yet filled with funny gags, including a cameo appearance by longtime regular Sakari Kuosmanen, offering a sweetness and tenderness in the face of so many obstacles in their path, where the director’s own dog captures our collective hearts at the end.  There is no lack of irony with Kaurismäki, where a constant Brechtian estrangement, together with very rigorous compositions of predominantly static shots and a 35 mm cinematography with clear and particularly saturated colors, contributes to a grotesque and surreal character.  Yet, at the same time, there is also a crude social criticism concerning not only the dehumanization of work, but also the transience of life in a world in where just a small gust of wind could drastically change things.  The evocative imagery and pronounced symbolism from longtime cinematographer Timo Salminen is particularly effective, especially an early shot of Holappa looking at himself in front of a broken mirror that condenses the jagged look of a man with a broken identity into a single image.  Few filmmakers have achieved a style so personal and so immediately recognizable, providing an extremely concise style of filmmaking with an elegant structure that manages to touch viewers in familiar yet also unexpected ways, subverting the Boy Meets Girl narrative that we’ve seen so many times, so far outside the Hollywood mold, yet the final shot is an enduring tribute to Chaplin.

Ariel

 

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.