Director: Aki Kaurismäki (Finland, Germany). Year of Release: 2023
A supermarket in Helsinki. The present day, but, in a sense, 50 years ago. A cashier rings through endless huge packages of meat, a shelf stacker up-prices the stock, a security guard looks on suspiciously. At the end of their shift, the mainly female workers go to their carefully coloured locker room. Before they can leave, they are stopped by management and told to empty their bags. When one reveals some food which is past its expiry date, she is fired on the spot.
Ansa points out that they can’t be fired as they’re on zero hours contracts. She returns home and puts a readymeal into the microwave – the only item in the house which looks like it comes from the present day. She turns on her wind-up radio, hoping for some music, but all she hears are news reports of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She returns to the microwave it, opens it, and throws the disgusting-looking food into the bin without bothering to taste it.
Meanwhile, Holappa has a non-denominational job on a construction site, where he has stored bottles of see-through liquid. An accident at work makes him think that he is due a compensation claim. Then he fails a routine blood-alcohol test, which means not just no compensation but also no job. Holappa’s mate Huatori insists on taking him to the karaoke in a drab pub. The mistress of ceremonies is a white haired old woman and the singers insist on performing Schubert Lieder.
Huatori sings a song, assuring his friend – wrongly – that he has a great voice. Holappa doesn’t take to the stage, saying “tough guys don’t sing”. When Huatori reminds him he’s not tough, he says that it’s an ambition. “Maybe in Denmark” retorts his friend before going over to chat up a woman in the bar. The woman is there with Ansa. Ansa and Holappa eye each other up timidly, but neither sees fit to approaching the other and starting up a conversation.
The couple’s paths meet again shortly afterwards. Ansa spends her last €8 to visit an Internet café and find a job at the California pub, which looks even seedier than the one which hosted the karaoke. The owner insists on paying cash in hand. Ansa starts immediately, washing the dishes and collecting glasses, but when she arrives the next day she sees the owner being taken away by the police. A crowd gathers outside, including Holappa who spends a lot of his time outside pubs.
Slowly, painstakingly, Ansa and Holappa make their way towards a date in the cinema. It’s not quite Travis Bickle taking Cybil Shepherd to see a porn film, but a zombie movie is a strange first date movie, even if it’s by Jim Jarmusch (some would argue, especially if it’s by Jim Jarmusch). Holappa convinces Ansa to give him her number – she won’t give her name until the next date – but almost immediately loses the piece of paper on which its written.
In the lack of any better idea, Holappa turns up every day at the cinema in the hope of getting a glimpse of Ansa. So does she, but not at the same time. When they finally bump into each other, she invites him for a meal. Before he comes, she must buy a second set of cutlery and crockery. Holappa blots his copy book by trying to sneak a drink. Ansa has already lost her father and brother to alcohol, and is not prepared to go through that again. She gets a dog instead.
Fallende Blätter is a simple love story, but Aki Kaurismäki films are only really simple if you’re not paying proper attention. The sets are coloured as thoughtfully as a Mondrian painting, and the boring conversations tell us a lot about the lives of the people who are having them. There are many scenes of people sitting in pubs, drinking, and barely looking at the person sat opposite – let along talking to them. This is a return to Kaurismäki’s early films which mainly portrayed alienation.
And yet the characters are neither dull nor unsympathetic. As usual, Kaurismäki’s actors do not look like actors – that is to say that they look like real people, not film stars. Not much happens in their lives because they spent too much time fighting to survive that they don’t have time for ecitement. This is a formula which could quickly become very dull and miserable, except that there is always a sense of fun. The characters are quirky, but not in an annoying way.
Kaurismäki’s more recent films, like Le Havre and The Other Side of Hope, have been more explicitly political than the old ones, focussing in particular on the plight of refugees. I think that although all of his films are worth watching, you could sense some development – more warmth and depth. In this sense, Fallende Blätter is a step backwards. As one critic said, you’ve seen it all before (though I think that critic meant it as a bad thing).
Nonetheless, there is something about watching normal-looking actors playing working-class characters which is a relief from Hollywood melodrama. Towards the end, we’re back in a pub (where else?) watching a female couple play instruments rudimentarily and sing lyrics like: “I was born in sorrow/Dressed in disillusion.” and “even the graveyard is by fences bound.” Your attitudr to the film will depend a lot on whether you find songs like this funny or depressing.
Fallende Blätter remains the right side of idiosyncratic. It does not try too hard to impress us with how crazy it is. And behind all the bizarreness, there is a poignant story about loneliness and the way in which capitalism rids us of our creativity. This is not top-quality Kaurismäki, but even his lesser films are the equal of those of most of his contemporaries. And at 80 minutes, it’s refreshingly short, so you have plenty of time to go to your own pub afterwards.
CinePhil 