Ariel

This is the second Aki Kaurismäki film I have seen.The first one was 'The Man Without a Past. After enjoying that a lot, I decided to watch the other movies of Kaurismaki, because I believe he is very good in expressing the 'life' through the simple daily life events or talks. When I watched Ariel, the first thing I noticed was, as in the previous movie, the characters don't speak much, but when they speak they are concise and to the point. The relationships start very abruptly and different from what is normally expected, but all of them end up being loyal and caring. With the beginning of the journey of the miner (Kasurinen) to the south by a convertible car, the movie also starts to present its comedy, romance, action and drama. Kasurinen keeps his calmness through all that happens to him and in the end he achieves his goal. I can recommend this movie to those who like details .

A new trend has emerged in world cinema which consists of portraying marginal characters from small towns who are unable to make better lives for themselves.It has been appreciated both by critics as well as ordinary film lovers as they are fed up of imaginary tales about urban centers which are nothing but an eyewash.Many filmmakers from Europe have explored this trend in their films in order to give audiences worldwide a realistic dose of humanity coupled with realism.Ariel is one such film directed by maverick Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki whose films have always made a point to portray harsh socio economic realities of Finland.Ariel is a film with universal sense of purpose as by depicting human mobility,a challenging film about a primitive human instinct has been filmed.Aki Kaurismaki shows us how his protagonist Taisto Kasurinen battles all odds to gain love,respect and trust in his difficult life full of unexpected challenges.A curious element that must be noted by an astute viewer about Ariel is that it is not at all a thriller film although rapid succession of events might suggest such a plausibility.There is a place for every possible genre in Ariel.We see comedy,drama and thriller all at the same time interspersed with natural beauty of icy Finnish landscape which has been popularized due to films by Aki Kaurismaki and his equally charismatic filmmaker brother Mika Kaurismaki.

When I first saw Ariel, at the beginning of the Nineties, maybe three years after it was first released, it blew me away. At the time I had gone through a long streak of awful "alternative" movies, the last one having been Atom Egoyan's "The Adjuster"; I was totally depressed and fed up with cinema in general since all the movies around seemed to be either generic Hollywood block busters or equally generic "intellectual" time wasters -- "The Adjuster" being a perfect example of the latter category. When I left the cinema after having seen Ariel, I had tears of joy in my eyes, thinking: "thank god, I do not have to give up going to the cinema after all". Ariel is exactly the movie I wish I had made, very cool, funny, stylish, engaging, romantic, hard core, subtle. I have seen it many times since, it has become my all - time favourite, desert - island movie. Of course there are other good movies around, but few which match its quality, and none of them changed my outlook on cinema the way Ariel did. Other Kaurismäkis movies I have seen and loved are "MacBeth", "I Hired A Contract Killer", "La vie de bohème", "Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö" ("The Match Factory Girl"), "Juha"; the Leningrad Cowboy flicks were OK, but not really my cup of tea.

Anyway, I have a small anecdote I want to get off my chest: shortly after seeing A I was talking with a couple of co - workers about movies, and one of them said: "the other day I saw the best movie ever, it's called Ariel, it blew me away, I haven't washed my eyes since", etc. I thought, wow, I would have never thought that she would like that movie, but there you go, truly good movies just have a universal appeal. Only years later did I find out that she had been talking about not Kaurismäkis' masterpiece but Disney's "Arielle -- The Little Mermaid". ;-)

There's something that seems deeply contradictory to the very nature of Kaurismaki's stuff - cinema which at the same time invites the viewer to pay closer attention while shunning him with his trademark apathy and deadpan humour. His characters appear hard, untearful and unselfpitying, their sentiments hermetically sealed behind glacial walls of Finnish unfeeling, yet behind the expressionless mask burn desire and pathos, the truly human stuff. It is not about negation, though it may seem so at first.

Everything Kaurismaki worked towards in his career up to Ariel is brought to a glorious, brilliant blooming here. Composition, shot selection, framing and lighting, everything clicks together to form a cinematic language that threatens to burst at the seams with meaningful restraint. Restraint in which silence communicates. His mastering of the craft so much perfected that dialogue becomes largely irrelevant. There are few lines and they appear to be utilized as a stylistic manner, short and delivered with deadpan unaffection, more than exposition.

Indeed Ariel is a movie mostly told in a visual manner, built upon scene by scene, in a steady and hypnotic succession not concerned with reaching emotionally draining highs and lows as much as with building an unbreakable rhythm of its own. And so it does, to the point that a 69 minute movie appears to last much longer, without outstaying its welcome.

Further stabilizing his position among my favorite filmmakers, Aki Kaurismäki has crafted yet another masterpiece with "Ariel", a hilarious and heartbreaking love story that chronicles a life both destroyed and saved by crime.

Like he beautifully accomplishes in most of his films, Kaurismäki mixes dry humor and brooding melancholy in a realistic, natural manner. The atmosphere is layered with realism, but also playfulness. The story is layered with sadness, but also comedy. Kaurismäki masterfully translates all of the comedies and tragedies of life to the screen, populating this interpretation of the human experience with unconventional heroes and some of international cinema's most unexpectedly kind hearted characters. Kaurismäki humanizes those who would often be looked upon as despicable criminals in a way that makes me root for them more than I would for any superhero. This is not your conventional, mainstream Hollywood film, but it still remains entertaining and accessible. It is a quiet character study that blossoms into a love story, a black comedy, and a bleak crime drama all at once.