Festival de Cannes
MOVIE REVIEW
Fallen Leaves (2023)
It's good to be reminded that a country can have a social safety net that's the envy of the world without necessarily making life easy for its people. It's also good to be reminded that a person’s choices can make life easier or harder without the safety net coming into it, though of course accidents can and do happen. But writer-director Aki Kaurismäki has always been interested in exploring people whose lives are constrained either by circumstance (being broke in Finland) or choice (not focusing on education when young). But everyone deserves to be safe, warm and well-fed, that is taken for granted. It's the pursuit of happiness that's in question.
Continue reading “Star-Crossed” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Centro histórico (2012)
International Film Festival Rotterdam
"I have been involved in this kind of thing before. It never works." Ahead of the Edinburgh screening of "Centro histórico," Pedro Costa's comment could have been about the dubious nature of portmanteau films; in this case four stories set in the Portuguese city of Guimarães by Aki Kaurismäki, Mr. Costa, Victor Erice and Manoel de Oliveira. Afterward, and filtered through an idiosyncratic Q. & A. with the director, it could just as easily have been a sign of Mr. Costa's professed wish to keep faith with an uncompromisingly political cinema and reach audiences who may not be receptive to his methods. Either way, it surely echoed the sentiments of the film's backers, who having commissioned it to promote the city's status as a 2012 European Capital of Culture and received a work deemed unreleasable, have now cast it onto the waters of the world's film festivals while hoping for the best.
Continue reading “Take It to the Streets” »
MOVIE REVIEW
Le Havre (2011)
Marja-Leena Hukkanen/Janus Films
The illegal-immigration theme has reenergized the careers of several master filmmakers of late, Ken Loach and the Dardennes among them. It’s like adding a new ingredient to a proven recipe and presto. Aki Kaurismäki is the most recent to try his hand, mixing the illegals with his usual ragtag crew of lovable outcasts. While such an experiment hasn’t proven successful for all auteurs, it has definitely worked to Mr. Kaurismäki’s advantage. “Le Havre” is easily the most humanist, generous and hopeful movie in recent memory.
Continue reading “The Man Without a Passport” »