FGLIES IN THE WIND
Type: alcoholic-passionate melodrama
Direction: Aki Kaurismäki. With Alme Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen, Martti Suosalo, Alina Tomnikov, Janne Hyytiäinen, Eero Ritala, Nuppu Koivu, Lauri Untamo
A distillation of the purest Kaurismäki, the essence – highly concentrated – of a cinema that finds its purest and most vaunted level in this, his latest film: the world arrives through the voice of the radio which only broadcasts news of the Soviet attack on Ukraine, daily reality is reduced to very few repetitive elements (the same actions at work) or humiliating (the impositions or abuses of the bosses) while people are alone in front of their silences.
The Finnish director doesn’t need anything else to tell us about the desert that men and women have to cross and from which the utopian horizon that was seen in his latest works also seems to have disappeared.
“Leaves in the Wind” won the Jury Prize at Cannes (photo Malla Hukkanen / Sputnik).
With this movie let’s go back to dealing with the fatality that destroys all hope, the one who searches in vain for a he and a she who meet their eyes in a karaoke club. The two understand that they feel something for each other but fate always seems to stubbornly get in the way.
Film after film seems to diminish the faith that Kaurismäki has in the world, but he stubbornly doesn’t want to lose at least a glimmer of hope. For those who still want to believe in heartbeats.
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