Le Havre (2011) Aki Kaurismäki

Le Havre (lit. 'The Haven') is a 2011 comedy-drama film produced, written, and directed by Aki Kaurismäki and starring André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Blondin Miguel. It tells the story of a shoeshiner who tries to save an immigrant child in the French port city Le Havre. The film was produced by Kaurismäki's Finnish company Sputnik with international co-producers in France and Germany. It is Kaurismäki's second French-language film, after La Vie de Bohème from 1992.

The film premiered in competition at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where it received the FIPRESCI Prize. Kaurismäki envisions it as the first installment in a trilogy about life in port cities. His ambition is to make follow-ups set in Spain and Germany, shot in the local languages. However, his next film The Other Side of Hope is set in Helsinki.

Plot

Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and struggling author, has given up his literary ambitions and relocated to the port city Le Havre. He leads a simple life based around his wife Arletty, his favourite bar and his not too profitable profession as a shoeshiner. As Arletty suddenly becomes seriously ill, Marcel's path crosses with an underage illegal immigrant from Africa. Marcel and friendly neighbors and other townspeople help to hide him from the police. The police inspector may, or may not, be hot on their heels.

Cast

Jean-Pierre Darroussin and Little Bob

André Wilms as Marcel Marx

Kati Outinen as Arletty

Jean-Pierre Darroussin as Monet

Blondin Miguel as Idrissa

Elina Salo as Claire

Évelyne Didi as Yvette

Quoc Dung Nguyen as Chang

Laika as Laika

François Monnié as Grocer

Roberto Piazza (aka Little Bob) as himself

Pierre Étaix as Doctor Becker

Jean-Pierre Léaud as Denouncer

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source : wikipedia

The Man Without a Past - Aki Kaurismaki

written by: Aki Kaurismaki

directed by: Aki Kaurismaki

produced by: Aki Kaurismki

screenwriter: Aki Kaurismaki

Kaurismaki won the Grand Prix in 2002 with The Man Without a Past, the second part of his 'unemployment' trilogy. This year, he brings the concluding part to Cannes - Lights in the Dusk is a story of betrayal and sacrifice in the suburbs of Helsinki.

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The Man Without a Past delivers a new edge to the story that stirred viewers all around the world in Drifting Clouds. Without sidestepping bitter issues, one could paint an image of a small country in the North in a touching, amusing, and liberating way.
At the beginning of this new film, a man (Markku Peltola) has travelled to Helsinki in search of work, gets mugged, loses his memory, and has to start completely anew, from scratch. He discovers love (Kati Outinen), and is forced to discover values with which man will not be ashamed to live. A small story about people who still know how to be gentle, an enormous cinematic experience.
The themes contain a translucent beauty, cross-lit in a confusingly rich manner by the direction. In the case of expression, the author takes the biggest risks, and wins. We know, ultimately from Juha (1999), the last silent movie of the 20th century, that Aki Kaurismδki is a rare breed of a portrayer of the border area, between the urban and the countryside, the privileged sector of the class society and the margins of Finland, sentenced to anonymity.
Kaurismδki’s portrayal of subservience contains dignity (neither pompous nor heavy-hearted), humour, a touch of melancholy (not far removed from the style of Chaplin), and an excellent understanding of the lot of his subjects, a lot that most probably is irrevocably at the bottom, but one that also possesses its own rebellious delights as well as room for one’s own self. The choice is a proud one, too, as power and domination seem to corrupt always and absolutely.
The ethics and style of Aki Kaurismδki are strongly related to several of the giants of cinema who have shown as well an absolute and most boundless respect for man by the creation of such a precise way of expression and such a cinematic style, with respect visible in every frame, through the means of pure cinema.
Aki Kaurismδki has created a film in which the daring and powerful scale of form, colours and means of expression indicates a fine awareness of tradition in relation to both Finnish and European cinema, and a bold new stylistic move in his own world.

source:http://www.leninimports.com/akiktmwap.html

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