Fallen Leaves - Movie Review

Critics Score - 8 of 10

General Audience Score - 7 of 10

Since the induction of moving pictures on a big screen, people have lined up to watch other people fall in love. The romantic relationship depictions between two people, sometimes with some humor thrown in for good measure, has brought people venturing out to the movies for the chance to fall in love all over again. A new international film from Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki called Fallen Leaves is here to take such audiences on another trip down lovers lane. This foreign film, naturally in spoken Finnish, is a delightful little romp that looks and feels much older, like a movie from the 1960’s or 70’s. The narrative plays like An Affair To Remember or Sleepless In Seattle, the two main characters are apart for great lengths of the film, and we’re rooting for these star crossed lovers to find their way past all the obstacles the screenwriter throws at them and get together. The film is as light, funny, cheerful and entertaining as it is well paced, it breezes on by at a brisk hour and twenty minutes. General audiences may not be quite as taken with this happy little foreign treasure of a film, but movie lovers and critics will be Fallen like Leaves over this latest effort from Kaurismäki.

SYNOPSIS - While the opening sequence begins, the word “Present” appears at the bottom indicating the film is taking place currently, which proves to be a bit of a mystery later on. We hear a checkout scanner at a store, the first scene opens and we see the grocery store worker Ansa (Alma Pöysti) in her bright red store shirt, checking out a man that’s purchasing a cart full of huge packages of meat. Later she’s pushing around a cart of expired store products and labeling them for disposal, the camera changes to show an overweight security guard dressed all in black glaring at her menacingly as she works. Ansa rides home on a bus that evening sporting a long, eggshell blue coat that eventually becomes one of the visual staples the film frequently visits. As she arrives home at her apartment, a building in serious need of a new paint job, she enters and removes an expired package from her purse of what looks to be some kind of cheese, which she pops into the microwave. She goes and turns on an old fashioned radio and listens to news about the war in Ukraine. The fact that the film is taking place currently makes it quite an oddity because aesthetically, visually, even the acting, are all crafted to make this film appear to be much older than it actually is, I’ll get into more specifics later. We then meet Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), a tall, slender fellow with slicked back hair, he’s using an air brush hose to clean some metal at what seems to be a recycling center or scrap yard. Later that day at home, he’s laying around at home on his bed reading an old comic book when his friend Huotari (Janne Hyytiäinen), convinces him to come out that night to sing karaoke. 

Later that evening our two loners, Ansa and Holappa, both end up at the same karaoke bar where Huotari belts out a song and Ansa and Holappa begin to exchange glances from across the room. Before they can meet though, the scene cuts and Ansa is back at work the next day, she’s in the back of the store throwing old products into a dumpster when the security guard and a store manager approach her, she’s accused of stealing expired products and subsequently terminated. As the plot moves forward, she eventually gets another job as a dishwasher at a restaurant, but on her payday she goes to get paid and her boss is getting arrested. A few people, including Holappa, have come to the restaurant and watch as her boss gets taken away, so Holappa invites Ansa for coffee but she has no money, so he buys her coffee and a cinnamon roll. Afterwards they decide to extend their date and go to the local cinema, only old film posters are seen oddly enough, but they go to see the 2019 film The Dead Don’t Die, starring Adam Driver and Bill Murray. Ansa doesn’t give him her name, but she gives him her number which slips out as he tries to put it in his leather jacket pocket, the camera giving us a good old fashioned close up shot of the paper being blown away down the road. Despite the writers best efforts to keep these two apart, you know that love, like Ian Malcolm says about life in Jurassic Park, “will find a way.”

Writer and director Aki Kaurismäki accomplished exactly what he set out to make with this movie. This can naturally be scrutinized, the camera at one point offering us a zoomed in shot of Holappa setting a glass on a table next to a bottle of alcohol, thus giving the audience an unnecessary visual explanation of “this man has a drinking problem”. Such dumbed down storytelling tropes are archaic by today’s standards and can certainly be criticized, but they give this movie the charm and character of a film from a bygone generation. For this recreation, I give Kaurismäki, the actors, costumes makers, set designers and others working on this film a ton of credit. Fallen Leaves is visually very muted, the color palette is plain, the costumes and production design are all made to resemble a film circa 1970 or earlier. The acting is intentionally stiff, the lines of humor deliberately delivered very dryly and without emotion, the intent to encapsulate the style of filmmaking is obvious. There was a different type of acting present in old films, it’s captured here again and you just don’t see anymore. To call the acting poor is rather unfair, it’s just different and in some ways it’s quite impressive that this cast and especially the two leads, Vatanen and Pöysti, are able to recapture this retro style of acting. I loved the lighting present in so many shots where almost the entirety of the frame that’s captured is in darkness but the characters in the center are illuminated by just a small amount of light in the room. The music is also dated, the melodies used are simple, and anytime the film uses something from the present, a shot in a liquor store of two young girls dressed modernly, the news speaking about the war in Ukraine, someone using a cell phone, it’s almost shocking. Imagine watching John Travolta pick up a flip phone and calling somebody in Grease and you get the idea. It was odd to be sure, but the curiosity of it all, combined with the love story between the leads, well it just made me smile. Was Fallen Leaves some incredible feat of filmmaking or some revolutionary groundbreaking cinema? No. But it was a delightful little surprise of a film that won me over and I’d happily recommend to anyone, the kind of film you could sit down and watch with your kids, grandparents and family and everyone could enjoy.

SUMMARY - With all the quirkiness present in the film that I’ve just finished outlining, it’s not going to be a film that everyone will be over the moon for, but it’s a wonderful foreign movie with broad appeal. Make it a point to catch this fall film when it becomes available in your area, to sit and watch these Fallen Leaves is no chore at all.