You’ll have to wait until the credits roll to hear Fallen Leaves sung in Finnish, but like all Aki Kaurismäki films, there’s no shortage of music along the way. This bittersweet story about two ordinary people who find each other, in the most hesitant fashion, is one of Kaurismäki’s typical working-class fables. If you’re already familiar with his movies, you’ll know what to expect. If you’ve never seen anything by the idiosyncratic, Finnish auteur, this is a good place to start.
The first thing one notices about a Kaurismäki feature is its remarkable objectivity. The city is Helsinki, but it could be anywhere. The camera observes the main characters going about their daily lives, with no editorialising and no added drama. He’s been described as a minimalist, a nostalgic, a humanist, but his films are unique. Nobody speaks unless they have to, although there is a wealth of wordless communication. At a time when movies seem to be getting longer and longer, Kaurismäki keeps everything under 90 minutes.
Life, for the protagonists of Fallen Leaves, Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), is a dull affair. Both are approaching middle age, both are lonely enough to warrant a stanza in Eleanor Rigby. She works at a dead-end job in a supermarket, he spends his days dressed in a protective suit, waterblasting grunge off bits of old pipe. She has a tiny apartment, inherited from her grandma, he sleeps in a dormitory, with a bunch of other workers.
They first lay eyes on each other in a seedy karaoke bar, where Holappa’s buddy, Hannes (Janne Hyytiäinen) gets up and sings a romantic, patriotic song. His performance wins the approval of Ansa’s friend, Liisa (Nuppu Koivu), although she deems him too old for serious consideration. Holappa exchanges silent glances with Ansa, but clings doggedly to his first love: the bottle. He drinks too much after work, then during work, taking sly nips from a flask. His drinking gets him dismissed from one labouring job after another. Meanwhile, Ansa loses her job for taking home a sandwich that was past its expiry date. After a short stint washing dishes, she ends up working in a factory.
When Holappa finally asks her out, they go see Jim Jarmusch’s zombie movie, The Dead Don’t Die. Now there’s a romantic first date! “I’ve never laughed so much,” she says.
In the karaoke bar, one hopeful talent sings Schubert’s Serenade, another goes for Mambo Italiano, made famous by Dean Martin. As the story progresses by small, cautious steps, we get everything from Gordon Lightfoot’s Early Mornin’ Rain, to Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique Symphony. As with so many of Kaurismäki’s films, the music occupies its own space in the story, making us pause and listen, sharing the feelings it engenders in the characters.
There are also the obligatory references to other films and directors, not simply to Kaurismäki’s buddy, Jim Jarmusch, but to a whole set of French new wave movies that have influenced his detached, deadpan style. One could almost see Ansa and Holappa as a comical, depressed version of Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo in a Godard flick, the style and flair being replaced with shabby clothing and social inertia. Australian viewers have the extra frisson of recognising Holappa as the miror image of Glenn McGrath. I kept wondering when he was going produce a cricket ball.
Throughout the film we hear the steady backdrop of news on the radio recounting atrocities from the war in Ukraine. This obviously conveys a greater sense of menace in Finland, a country that shares a border with Russia, but the main function of these news bulletins is to alert us to the fragility of life. These two lonely people are approaching and retreating from each other, getting close and getting lost, while time is slipping away. Today it’s Ukraine, it may be Finland tomorrow.
It’s futile trying to accurately describe a movie like Fallen Leaves. It has to be experienced at first-hand to appreciate its droll humour, its silences and pauses, its expressive use of colour, its pervasive retro feel. The film requires a different approach from the actors, who keep their emotions in check, but still allow us to understand the way they are thinking and feeling. We learn more about Ansa from her relationship with her dog, than from anything she says. Fallen Leaves won the Jury Prize at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and was voted the best film of 2023 by the International Film Critics Circle. It hasn’t been nominated for single category in the forthcoming Academy Awards, which may be taken as a resounding endorsement.
Fallen Leaves
Written & directed by Aki Kaurismäki
Starring: Alma Pöysti, Jussi Vatanen, Janne Hyytiäinen, Nuppu Koivu, Sherwan Haji, Martii Suosalo
Finland/Germany, M, 81 mins
Published in the Australian Financial Review, 17 February, 2024