Alma Pöysti as Ansa and Jussi Vatanen as Holappa, in FALLEN LEAVES. Courtesy of MUBI.
FALLEN LEAVES is a romantic comedy from Finland, with the driest of humor. Bone-dry does not cover it; this is a Sahara Desert of dry humor. No one cracks a smile and no one winks at the audience as they deadpan their satiric comedy lines. This is also the bad-luck couple of the year, who can’t seem to catch a break, except through the most absurd of coincidence. FALLEN LEAVES is undeniably funny, in it deadpan Nordic way but you have to meet the humor on its own terms. It is not there to help you.
If all that sounds good to you, dive in. Personally I like Nordic humor and I appreciate the film’s touches of social commentary in its absurdist humor, but it is not for everyone.
In Helsinki, two lonely people meet by chance. Ansa (Alma Pöysti) lives alone and works in a supermarket, where her job is to pull expired items off the shelf and throw them in the trash. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a metal worker who has a drinking problem and thinks he’s just fine living alone. Holappa’s co-worker Huotari (Janne Hyytiainen), a middle-aged guy still hoping to find love, talks the taciturn industrial worker into going to a karaoke bar. There Holappa spots blonde pretty Ansa, who is there with some of her co-workers, and changes his mind about being OK with a lonely life. Ansa and Holappa exchange looks but not words, and certainly not names, even when Holappa’s pal tries to strike up a conversation with one of her co-workers after his karaoke song.
Holappa is a man of few words and Ansa is a woman of few words, but their co-workers pepper the air with satiric remarks and dry-humor social commentary. After Holappa’s co-worker sings his romantic karaoke ballad, he starts talking about being “discovered,” waiting for a record contract, and how amazing his singing was – all with such determined deadpan that we’re not even sure he’s joking.
It’s typical of the humor in FALLEN LEAVES, whose title translates literally as “dead leaves.” Another bit of absurdist humor happens at Ansa’s job, when she is fired for “theft” after the store manager discovers an expired-product cookie in her purse. Ansa objects, rationally, that the item is being thrown away anyway but the store manager counters that if it doesn’t go in the trash, it’s stealing. Two of Ansa’s co-workers, who have been watching this exchange, then pull out expired items from their purses, and quit in protest over her firing, even though the manager, absurdly, tells them they can stay because they surrender the items voluntarily.
Of course, this creates a problem for the budding romance, when Holappa goes to the grocery store to look for Ansa – the only think he learned about her at the bar the night before – only to discover she doesn’t work there any more. It’s the first of the comedy’s many missed-connections routines. Of course, chance then intervenes to put them back together again, before it tears them apart again. And again and again. This road never did run smooth, you know.
This Finnish-German comedy-drama is the fourth in a series from writer/director Aki Kaurismäki. The previous films in his “Proletariat” series on ordinary working people are SHADOWS IN PARADISE (1986), ARIEL (1988), and THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL (1990).
The time period of this romantic comedy-drama is deliberately unclear – there are items from earlier decades, like a vintage radio, retro furniture and dated clothing, but the radio broadcasts are from 2022 or 2019 (with Russia invading Ukraine). The couple go to a movie theater and see a 2019 horror-comedy (Jim Jarmusch’s THE DEAD DON’T DIE) – but all the movie poster outside are for films from a range of eras. A calendar in another scene says that it is 2024, so who knows. Obviously, we’re not supposed to.
FALLEN LEAVES is full of satiric and absurdist humor, often delivered by passers-by or minor characters, and in off-hand manner. The two leads, Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, actually do a good job in their challenging roles, touchingly conveying damped-down feelings between two people who seem incapable of expressing feelings, which is kind of sweet. However, while this dry-humor film certainly has its comic moments, this romance between two nearly-silent people may not be one that lingers in memory.
FALLEN LEAVES, in Finnish with English subtitles, opens in theaters on Friday, Dec. 1.
Review
FALLEN LEAVES – Review
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FALLEN LEAVES is a romantic comedy from Finland, with the driest of humor. Bone-dry does not cover it; this is a Sahara Desert of dry humor. No one cracks a smile and no one winks at the audience as they deadpan their satiric comedy lines. This is also the bad-luck couple of the year, who can’t seem to catch a break, except through the most absurd of coincidence. FALLEN LEAVES is undeniably funny, in it deadpan Nordic way but you have to meet the humor on its own terms. It is not there to help you.
If all that sounds good to you, dive in. Personally I like Nordic humor and I appreciate the film’s touches of social commentary in its absurdist humor, but it is not for everyone.
In Helsinki, two lonely people meet by chance. Ansa (Alma Pöysti) lives alone and works in a supermarket, where her job is to pull expired items off the shelf and throw them in the trash. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a metal worker who has a drinking problem and thinks he’s just fine living alone. Holappa’s co-worker Huotari (Janne Hyytiainen), a middle-aged guy still hoping to find love, talks the taciturn industrial worker into going to a karaoke bar. There Holappa spots blonde pretty Ansa, who is there with some of her co-workers, and changes his mind about being OK with a lonely life. Ansa and Holappa exchange looks but not words, and certainly not names, even when Holappa’s pal tries to strike up a conversation with one of her co-workers after his karaoke song.
Holappa is a man of few words and Ansa is a woman of few words, but their co-workers pepper the air with satiric remarks and dry-humor social commentary. After Holappa’s co-worker sings his romantic karaoke ballad, he starts talking about being “discovered,” waiting for a record contract, and how amazing his singing was – all with such determined deadpan that we’re not even sure he’s joking.
It’s typical of the humor in FALLEN LEAVES, whose title translates literally as “dead leaves.” Another bit of absurdist humor happens at Ansa’s job, when she is fired for “theft” after the store manager discovers an expired-product cookie in her purse. Ansa objects, rationally, that the item is being thrown away anyway but the store manager counters that if it doesn’t go in the trash, it’s stealing. Two of Ansa’s co-workers, who have been watching this exchange, then pull out expired items from their purses, and quit in protest over her firing, even though the manager, absurdly, tells them they can stay because they surrender the items voluntarily.
Of course, this creates a problem for the budding romance, when Holappa goes to the grocery store to look for Ansa – the only think he learned about her at the bar the night before – only to discover she doesn’t work there any more. It’s the first of the comedy’s many missed-connections routines. Of course, chance then intervenes to put them back together again, before it tears them apart again. And again and again. This road never did run smooth, you know.
This Finnish-German comedy-drama is the fourth in a series from writer/director Aki Kaurismäki. The previous films in his “Proletariat” series on ordinary working people are SHADOWS IN PARADISE (1986), ARIEL (1988), and THE MATCH FACTORY GIRL (1990).
The time period of this romantic comedy-drama is deliberately unclear – there are items from earlier decades, like a vintage radio, retro furniture and dated clothing, but the radio broadcasts are from 2022 or 2019 (with Russia invading Ukraine). The couple go to a movie theater and see a 2019 horror-comedy (Jim Jarmusch’s THE DEAD DON’T DIE) – but all the movie poster outside are for films from a range of eras. A calendar in another scene says that it is 2024, so who knows. Obviously, we’re not supposed to.
FALLEN LEAVES is full of satiric and absurdist humor, often delivered by passers-by or minor characters, and in off-hand manner. The two leads, Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, actually do a good job in their challenging roles, touchingly conveying damped-down feelings between two people who seem incapable of expressing feelings, which is kind of sweet. However, while this dry-humor film certainly has its comic moments, this romance between two nearly-silent people may not be one that lingers in memory.
FALLEN LEAVES, in Finnish with English subtitles, opens in theaters on Friday, Dec. 1.
RATING: 3 out of 4 stars