Aki Kaurismaki. |
Working at first with his older brother Mika, Aki quickly
established himself as the more productive of the two. His style is said to
have been influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville and Robert Bresson but you can see
the marked footprint of German enfant terrible Rainer Werner Fassbinder,
something Aki denies.
The Finnish directors basic approach to film making is to
assert a minimalist feel to his work, which would included a simple plot,
sparse dialogue, live music and mostly shoot on the streets of Helsinki. His
themes cover working class life and aspirations. There’s an apparent sense of
humour running through his work, more droll Finnish than black comedy. He tends
to use the same actors with Matti Pellonpää appearing in most of his oeuvre.
Crimes and Punishment
(1983)
Aki Kaurismaki’s debut feature film was an adaptation of
Flodor Dostoyevshy’s Russian novel of the same name first published in1866. Your
be pleased to know you don’t have to read the book to appreciate this film! Aki
has shifted the setting from St Petersburg to early 1980’s Helsinki and in the
process simplifying this 528-page classic.
The revenge of Antti Rahikainen. |
When Antti Rahikainen (Markku Toikka) finishes his shift at
the local slaughterhouse, he goes to the well-upholstered flat of 50-year-old
rich businessman Kari Honkanen and with complete lack of emotion shoots him in
the chest! Most people in the same circumstances as Rahikainen would leave the
scene of crime pretty pronto but not him he calmly sits contemplating his handy
work when Eeva, a caterer originally hired by the newly deceased to furnish a
birthday party planned for that evening, walks in on the bloody scene. He tells
the girl what he has done and tells her to ring the police and than leaves.
Eeva’s describes the culprit as a ‘lunatic with a strange stare’ to which the
investigating officer Pennanen reply’s ‘that only increases the number of
suspect’s’. Although he really wants to be punished for his crime the police
are unable to charge Rahikainen with the murder. In the meantime Eeva strike’s
up a curious relationship with Rahikainen when she finds out the reason behind
the killing!
This movie brings to mind the recent Norwegian film written
by Jo Nesbo Jackpot (2011) that also
has some very intense straight-faced acting humour. Crimes and Punishment (1983) is
about the loneliness of the human soul, where an injustice has to be avenged
knowing that the authorities are never going to put right. A good example of a
simple plot that tells all.
Aki quoted Alfred Hitchcock as claiming that Dostoyevshy’s
novel could not be made into a film and said he was happy to show the old man
how it should be done, and he did just that.
Calamari Union 1985.
Dedicated to those
ghosts of Baudelaire Michaux and Prevert who still hover on this earth…
Our story involves sixteen Franks and a Pekka. |
Hamlet Gets Business
1987.
Hamlet. |
Hamlet (Pirkka-Pekka Petelius) is the
son of a successful businessman, but when his father dies – a death brought
about by his ambitious uncle Klaus (Esko Salminen) who is having an affair with
Hamlet’s mother Gertrud (Elina Salo) – the young man seems to have no interest
in the wealth and power he has inherited. He doesn’t really have a head for
business and spends his time instead writing poetry to Ofelia (Kati Outinen) –
the daughter of senior manager Polonious (Esko Nikkari) - and doodling with
crayons at important boardroom meetings. But Hamlet is not blind to the
business of murder or the scheming that is going on around him, and intends to
oppose and expose their activities.[1]
Hamlets mum gets close to his uncle. |
Kaurismaki transposed Shakespeare’s Hamlet to film via this intriguing
1987 movie Hamlet Gets Business bringing out the dark humour of the Bards
melodramatic tale of betrayal and murder and sticking to the originals plot
structure by treading the well warn path of son seeking revenge for his fathers
murder but now set in the corporate business world of rubber duck manufacture
in modern day Helsinki. In his own inevitable way Aki attacks the commercial
world of big business. Perhaps not quite up to the standard of the two previous
films, but well worth a look all the same.
La Vie de Boheme
1992.
Rodolfo, Marcel Marx and Schaunard. |
Aki Kaurismaki’s latest film Le Havre (2011)
is said to be a follow up to La Vie de Boheme (The Bohemian Life)
(1992) and features some of the same actor’s including Evelyne Didi,
Jean-Pierre Leaud and of course Andre Wilms who plays the same character,
Marcel Marx, just as he did 19 years ago. La
Vie de Boheme is the director’s first film in the French language and set in
1960’s Paris. Freely adapted from Henri Murgers 1851 novel Scenes de la vie de boheme, the original source of Puccini’s opera,
It tells a bittersweet tragedy that involves three marginalised odd balls that
refuse to be dictated to on how to live their lives, and on their search for
‘true’ love.
Rodolfo comforts the love of his life. |
When Marcel gets a editing job he buys Schaunard a car to
get them about and only in Aki’s films would this advancement mean a three
wheeled Reliant Robin! This darkly comic adaptation with its anarchic humour is
not really a story in the true sense of the word but more of a timeframe which gradually
drift’s through the bohemian lives and loves of these three very likable eccentrics.
Conclusion.
Aki in a more cheerful mood. |
But I don’t think we should take to much notice of what Aki
Kaurismaki says, but to let his insanely socially realistic movies speak for
themselves with their simple plots, their humour and appealing cinematic
composition. Never afraid to work in black and white or to support the
marginalised underclass he is a working filmmaker to be admired and applauded.
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