Rating: NR | Runtime: 81 minutes
Release Date: September 15th, 2023 (Finland) / November 17th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: B-Plan Distribution / MUBI
Director(s): Aki Kaurismäki
Writer(s): Aki Kaurismäki
Swine are intelligent and sympathetic.
Aki Kaurismäki has created the year’s driest romantic comedy with Fallen Leaves: a slow-building love affair between quiet Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and alcoholic Holappa (Jussi Vatanen). With an acerbic wit that has the slyest of grins coming across as belly laughs, their courtship starts with a silent stare across the room of a karaoke bar before escalating to coffee and a movie (Jim Jarmusch, no less) after a fateful re-run-into-moment just after she loses her job and just before he does too.
The script consists of constantly lobbed deadpan barbs either between Ansa and Holappa or each of them and their respective friends (Nuppu Koivu’s Liisa and Janne Hyytiäinen’s Huotari, respectively). You can’t help but laugh as their words quickly cut through the other’s good-natured insults—that very Finnish tone and humor a necessity considering how depressing the world in which they populate proves. Russia’s bombing of Ukraine is on the radio and jobs are few and far between with the bottle serving as solace.
Yet there remains an air of hope lingering throughout anyway. Hope that things might turn out okay despite the odds being stacked against them. Ansa has her tiny one-room apartment, often dark to save money on the electric bill. Holappa has his cigarettes and stubbornness to keep him warm once unemployment leaves him sleeping on park benches. But there’s still that possibility of love. Growth. Survival. It’s one step forward and two steps back, but they both always get back up.
The 81-minute runtime doesn’t leave much room for plot or mystery or anything besides Ansa and Holappa’s sweetly pointed detour through the other’s life. The film’s success therefore hinges on your ability to tune into its vibes since the tone does not change from start to finish. Whether the characters are lost and alone or cautiously found, their flirtatious ribbing never wavers. Nor does Kaurismäki’s desire to test their resolve with yet another tragedy. Thankfully, Pöysti and Vatanen’s pitch-black charm appears unbeatable.
Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen in FALLEN LEAVES.
jaredmobarak.com 
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