Fallen Leaves is probably the least accessible film that I’ve reviewed, a Finnish Rom-Com with a Uncanny Valley time period, the driest dialogue and yet the most endearing couple. Aki Kaurismäki is a Finnish filmmaker with a very particular style of storytelling, one that I have not been privy to until now. There is so much patience in the film, a calmness that it’ll be fine, even with the most dramatic and impossible hurdles to overcome. The film feels baron in presentation, with simplistic sets and costumes, but packs so much into the eighty-eight minute runtime that I kept being surprised when it didn’t end.

Ansa (Alma Pöysti) works in a supermarket, unappreciated and stuck in a dead end routine of packing shelves, rotating stock and taking home a select out of date meal. One day though, she is caught by the security guard and fired from her job, losing any income flow. As she has a depressed and celebratory drink later on that day, she meets Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) while he’s refusing to sing karaoke with his work friend. They meet again as Holappa is passed out waiting for the bus, and then again as Ansa is losing her second job. They decide to head to the cinema, after which, Ansa gives Holappa her number, only for him to lose it. They lose each other in that time, before finding each other again, losing each other and finding and losing and finding.
The back and forth may be a bit exaggerated, but we do get some impossible chances at reconnections after what felt hopeless. I was truly on the rollercoaster of hope, while being serenaded by some beautiful music, enhancing the emotions and instant love felt between the two. The music and look harken back to an older time, at times feeling like a colourised classic film. That technique brings some inherent warmness and nostalgia to the film, giving it a familiarity that you often feel watching a classic romance film.
It’s hard to put my finger on why I felt so much in the film, with the quite often matter of fact dialogue and minimal set decoration. The chemistry between the leads is apparent from the beginning, there is an ease in their silence and a comfort with each other. Even though there are some issues that they have to overcome to even try to be together, there is no faltering in the feelings they have for one another.
Holappa deals with addiction in the film, hindering his work and personal life. He doesn’t recognise that it's a problem until he meets Ansa, and sees what he could lose if he continues down the path he’s going. He is so comfortable in his ways that you do question if they can overcome this to be together.

The film is set against the backdrop of modern day, even though there is a lack of modern technology in the film, it blends mobile phones with old style radios, as Ansa listens to the news or music on an old style radio throughout the film. We hear a lot of stories recounting the ongoing war in Russia and Ukraine, lingering on the broadcast and forcing us to listen to the tragedies going on outside of the bubble we’ve been put in. There’s a reminder not to get caught up in your own life, and expand your vision to the rest of the world sometimes.
The lingering isn’t only in the radio broadcasts, it's a theme for the film, as characters will leave the frame quite often while we stay with the image, holding on to what was before moving on. I think this technique took me a bit to get used to, with the tonal balance of drama and comedy, it felt like it was being played for laughs but as the film went on, it started to feel more purposeful in the emotional side, as if we’re to worry that we’re being left behind.
I spoke about the sets being more basic, feeling like unapologetic sets. Which continued to remind me of classic films and their more stagey feel. The walls felt constructed and thin, colours freshly painted on them. None of this took away from the film or how I felt about the characters, even though the look is not one that completely immersed me in the world. It took me longer than usual to get into the story but once I did, it felt transporting to somewhere familiar and similar, but not quite real.

Fallen leaves is my first introduction to Aki Kaurismäki but definitely won’t be my last. I am going to seek out more of his work and keep an eye on his filmography as it grows, excited to see more. I think his ability to establish connections between characters is unique, not falling back to traditional methods of a shared joke or “meet cute” encounter. He puts his characters in pretty dire worlds but their connection seems to light it up and be a reason to keep going.
Comments