I can understand why this film won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes. It's a very simple story that is brilliantly paced and, for me, absolutely bloody hilarious, all without cracking a smile. NOBODY smiles in this film, even when they're saying outrageously funny things. It is weirdly reminiscent of watching a Keatonesque silent film, but with dialogue. I thought of Samuel Beckett as I watched this, and understood why he liked Buster Keaton so much: he represented humanity's eternal struggle to be seen and heard while he was surrounded by unending chaos cloaked as 'civility'.
The brilliant Finnish writer/director Aki Kaurismaki satirizes just about everything here, and does it so well that you'll miss a lot if you blink too much.
This is essentially an absurdist black comedy, but it's so much more. The acting is so unusual and so remarkably dead-pan that it becomes a testament to controlled cinematic mayhem. Markku Peltola, the unknown 'M,' who literally rises from the dead, and Kati Outinen as the stone-faced Irma, are both wonderful, but then again so is the entire cast. How Kaurismaki manages to sustain this straight-faced send-up for 100 minutes is astonishing. You just don't see this kind of stuff very often.
Kaurismaki is up to a lot of mischief with this film. With the exaggerated aloofness everywhere on display, he must surely be having fun with widespread perceptions of Scandinavian 'iciness'. I'm not sure what the Finns thought of this film, but it's deeply appreciated (and endearing) for someone in far-off Canada (we're a country of stereotypes too).
Kaurismaki doesn't miss many satirical targets: the rigid stupidity of corporate and government bureaucracy, religion (Salvation Army's new-found rock band with boyish faces singing rollicking songs with absolutely no facial emotion), the 'sanctity' of marriage, and (I loved this) the lunatical excesses of capitalism (a bank so 'downsized' that its alarm systems no longer work, it's left with one employee, and it's being sold the next day -- to North Korea).
When you can sustain this lunacy, and still make some important statements about the nature of kindness, identity, and human dignity, then you've pulled off a great work of art. I loved this film.
The brilliant Finnish writer/director Aki Kaurismaki satirizes just about everything here, and does it so well that you'll miss a lot if you blink too much.
This is essentially an absurdist black comedy, but it's so much more. The acting is so unusual and so remarkably dead-pan that it becomes a testament to controlled cinematic mayhem. Markku Peltola, the unknown 'M,' who literally rises from the dead, and Kati Outinen as the stone-faced Irma, are both wonderful, but then again so is the entire cast. How Kaurismaki manages to sustain this straight-faced send-up for 100 minutes is astonishing. You just don't see this kind of stuff very often.
Kaurismaki is up to a lot of mischief with this film. With the exaggerated aloofness everywhere on display, he must surely be having fun with widespread perceptions of Scandinavian 'iciness'. I'm not sure what the Finns thought of this film, but it's deeply appreciated (and endearing) for someone in far-off Canada (we're a country of stereotypes too).
Kaurismaki doesn't miss many satirical targets: the rigid stupidity of corporate and government bureaucracy, religion (Salvation Army's new-found rock band with boyish faces singing rollicking songs with absolutely no facial emotion), the 'sanctity' of marriage, and (I loved this) the lunatical excesses of capitalism (a bank so 'downsized' that its alarm systems no longer work, it's left with one employee, and it's being sold the next day -- to North Korea).
When you can sustain this lunacy, and still make some important statements about the nature of kindness, identity, and human dignity, then you've pulled off a great work of art. I loved this film.