2023-05-27 15:00:00
When Aki Kaurismaki was asked about the reason for the constant presence of dogs in his films, his answer was: “Dogs do not ask for monetary reward and do not have a union!”. In one sentence, the great Finnish director, born 66 years ago in a city located in southern Finland, summed up the type of humor in which he was and still is a master, whether inside or outside his films.
Kaurismaki, a fan of the “French New Wave”, did not study cinema academically, but rather learned it by watching films in cinema clubs in the vicinity of the capital, Helsinki, of which he was an active member. It is said that he was not accepted into film school because he was mean. However, he joined the Faculty of Mass Communication for three years, and this was, as he put it, wasted time in his life, which he should have spent learning carpentry.
In an interview dating back to the year 1990, he says that he started in the “business” of films by chance, because he was ignorant of what to do in his life and “was not good for anything.” Before the cinema, he worked in construction, as the character of his latest movie, “Dead Papers”, shown in the 2023 Cannes competition, then entered the field of art through writing and acting (especially in the films of his older brother Mika). He did not study directing or dramatic art. At first, he got involved in films that were doomed to fail, but with the “Proletarian Trilogy” he began to attract attention, in Europe in general, and in France in particular. His first films bore social concerns, but he was never politicized in the ideological sense. Although he does not give direct answers to such questions, he defines himself as a non-conservative.
“Yoha”.
Finding a title at Kaurismaki precedes the screenwriting process. He finds an address and then writes the idea in his head, which sometimes requires no more than a few days after it had fermented in his imagination for several months. When the interviewer of the famous “Cinema Cinema” program asked him if it would be possible for him to accomplish a “bourgeois trilogy” in the manner of his “proletarian trilogy”, his reply was that he could not do that even if he wanted to. “I lose the little talent I have when I go to a bourgeois place,” he says sarcastically. As for naming the proletariat, he says that naming him “Loser” (loser) in referring to his personalities is more correct and accurate. “They are a step below the proletariat. They don’t have enough sense of belonging. They’re just losers, they live their lives like this. They join the syndicate if someone asks them to, but if no one approaches them, they won’t know anything about syndication. I always decide to end my films with a miserable end, Then I look at the characters and feel pity for them, and then I change it to a happy ending at the last minute.”
Kaurismaki did not choose ease from his beginnings, despite the extreme simplicity in his films, because he decided to film “Crime and Punishment” by Dostoevsky in a cinematic quote that was remarkable. We are now talking about the early eighties, and Kaurismäki is in his early twenties. His next film, The Calamari Syndicate, is a diversion from the first film, which he made to prevent any attempt to outdo himself compared to his debut. However, “Girl of Matches” (1990) is a station in his career and the beginning of his dedication internationally. The film tells the story of a girl who is being exploited at work and in love. All the nineties will be full of films, up to his masterpiece “The Man Without a Past”, which will open the millennium, and it is about a man who loses his memory after being subjected to a physical assault, before trying to build his life again with the homeless and with the help of a charity. The film won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
From the first shot, the alert viewer realizes that he is in front of a film by Kaurismaki, who prefers to describe his style as melodramatic. The color, the frame, the faces, the way everyone moves within the space, the rhythm, the quality of the dialogues, the looks of the characters at each other, the sad decorations… All of this is repeated from film to film to create a complete and integrated world. The eye gets accustomed to the details and you are not mistaken with the cinematographers who drag us into their families. This is the case of many directors such as Roy Anderson, Jacques Tati, Terence Malik and others.
“The Man Without a Past”.
Bernard Jenny gave this absurd short interview with Kaurismaki in the early 1990s about his movie “Leningrad Cowboys Go to America”.
Your movie is great. funny.
No, it’s tragic.
Why a tragedy?
Because it’s a flop.
Why is the movie a failure?
– Because I’m a loser.
Why are you failing?
– Because I’m sad.
– And why are you sad?
– I don’t know, I’ve been like this since I was born.
– That’s why you’re a loser?
No, because I’m Finn.
– What do you mean?
– I mean, I live in a broken country.
– Who destroyed it?
– Banks, insurance companies, spoiled forests in exchange for computers and nuclear centers.
Doesn’t technological development provide some positive aspects?
– No, we don’t have it.
– Why?
Because we are sad people.
How is this sadness translated?
People are drinking more and more, fighting more and more, committing suicide more and more.
– It’s Apocalypse!
– No, it’s Finland.
“The Other Side of Hope”.
Kaurismaki, whose idol the Finnish director Tofu Tulio has remained, is extremely affectionate with his characters, even when he portrays a loser. There is a theme dear to Kaurismaki, who dreams of a better world and at the same time knows the impossibility of achieving it: human solidarity, especially when he portrays people with equal conditions, even if they come from different environments. It is not difficult to find a shirt merchant who leaves his wife (she also dreams of moving elsewhere), to start a new life and another profession (the restaurant). However, his small idea of human solidarity he grafts with the comic minimalist attitudes rooted in “Humer”, a European North that smells of wine.
This is exactly what happens in “The Other Side of Hope”, his penultimate film that was shown six years ago in Berlin. It is an ordinary story of a Syrian refugee who arrives in Helsinki on a ship, after burying himself in coal. But with Kaurismaki, nothing is normal, as he is eloquent in his ability to make others print with him and his cinematic world. The newcomers move as his characters have always moved within the cadre, leaving a space between action and reaction. And there are, of course, all those things that his films were full of: the kitsch and antique furniture of the houses that time has eaten and drank, the confused and hesitant faces, the suffocating staff, the gloomy gray atmosphere.
Without too much faith in humanity, which reminds us of the need to return to its lofty values, Kaurismäki calls for catching some rays of light that seep out of the darkness. And he is a poet and a politician in that!
“Dead Leaves”.
Yoha (a remake of a classic of Finnish cinema) was shown in Lebanon in 1999. Finnish film, silent and black and white. Attracted quite a few cinephiles. It’s this wonder called Kaurismäki. The European Film Festival in Beirut was keen to bring the latest out of this director’s imagination. In an interview with Katti Ottinen, the blonde with a polished presence and parsimonious performance in movement and expression, who has appeared in ten Kauresmäki films, she tells me behind the scenes of her work with Kaurismäki: “Aki learned to do movies while watching them. He’s a big fan of silent films. He also has an obsession with motion pictures.” In black and white and their gradations, because of the shades they contain. As a viewer, these films allow you to unleash the imagination. They have a purely cinematic aspect. This was his dream. We prepared for the film while watching silent films (laughter). We had a lot of fun shooting it, although it was not easy. Black and white need intense lighting to obtain the shadows that cover the walls, and other aesthetic details.I remember that we filmed one of the scenes from one angle, then from another angle, but the shadows suddenly disappeared from the wall, so we had to draw them with our hands, and photographed again. “We were doing amazing things that are difficult to do today. Back then, we were shooting in 35mm. Until then, there was only one person in Europe who developed black and white films, and it was common to shoot film in color and then transfer it to black and white.”
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