J'ai engagé un tueur

Over the course of seven movies, Aki Kaurismäki explored various sides of Finnish life and culture, from the inexorably tragic (The Match Factory Girl) to the upright hilarious (Leningrad Cowboys Go America). For his eighth feature film, he decided to try something new: he moved to England, ditched all of his regular actors, cast his all-time idol (New wave star Jean-Pierre Lèaud) in the lead and came up with one of the most brilliant and bizarre comedies of recent years. Well, not that recent, but it's genius, I can assure you.

The story takes place in London, and begins in what seems to be a very boring office (or at least the work is boring). Because of financial difficulties, some employees have to be made redundant. For some other reason, foreigners are the first victims. In other words, Henri Boulanger (Lèaud) is out of the game. Having lost the only thing he really cared for, he thinks there's nothing left for him in life and therefore tries to kill himself. Repeatedly. And with mediocre results (hanging? The rope is tron apart; putting the head in an oven? Gas strike all over the city).

This makes Henri even more miserable. So sad, in fact, that he eventually asks a professional assassin (Kenneth Colley) to do the job. While waiting for his final hour to come, he goes to a pub. And there the unexpected happens: he meets a woman (Margi Clarke), rediscovers the joy of living and changes his mind. Pity the killer won't...

In someone else's hands, this film could have been an absurd, grotesque, unrealistic parody of gangster movies. Kaurismäki, however, keeps it simple and believable, largely thanks to the controlled performances: Colley stays cold and unaffected throughout the whole film, even when he's coughing blood, while Léaud never abandons his everyman role, doing nothing more than occasionally raise an eyebrow when things take unpredicted turns.

The film is almost perfect, weren't it for one factor: Margi Clarke. With all the talented British actresses available, Kaurismäki had to pick an unknown with no charm and a dreadful accent. This slight casting mistake prevents I Hired a Contract Killer from being an undisputed masterwork, but like all the other movies on Kaurismäki's CV, it's still worth your attention.

Great movie. Based on the story by Jules Verne Les Tribulations d'un chinois en Chine, Kaurismaki surprise us again with his strange humorous style. A story about feelings in an inexpressive way; don't mind how blue you can feel, there's always a place for love and hope. People and their contradictions; a man who don't want to live, contracts a killer who don't want to die. If you have seen any Kaurismaki's films, you should know that they are different; His way of filming and his stories are not "normal" in the commercial way; he seems to keep the distances with the characters, and that could be annoying for some people; but if you like it, you will love all his films. Kaurismaki is a genius, and he is funny too.

I watched a documentary about Aki Kaurimaki (one of my favourite directors) in which he stated that he was sick and tired of pages and pages of dialogue he had written ending up on the cutting room floor. So he keeps the dialogue to a minimum. This film is a perfect example of this philosophy. This is Kaurismaki's trademark. Anyone who has seen "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" or "Arial" will recognise his sparing use of dialogue rather than having characters speak just for the sake of speaking. It is no wonder that his most recent film "Juha" was a silent film.

This is a very dark and very realistic film about loneliness and depression. All the main characters in the film are lonely people, with very little to live for. Anyone who liked Tom Di Cillo's "Johnny Suede" will find that this is a very film to "I hired a Contract Killer". Personally, I loved this film and would highly recommend it to anyone with an appreciation for fine art house cinema.

"I Hired a Contract Killer" unites on the same crossroad two helpless and persistent souls of the world cinema, working with a plot that suits them almost perfectly: director/writer Aki Kaurismaki and actor Jean-Pierre Léaud. I include the latter not much because of his real persona but mostly due to his most commonly associated character, the troubled Antoine Doinel, which in a way could be a figure of a Kaurismaki film and the director takes some advantage of that to make Léaud be part of his strange yet dark humored vignettes involving helpless characters dealing with meaningless lives until they find exquisite solutions for their problems.

The eternal Doinel, usually confident and striving for a certain goal (as evidenced in his later adventures post "The 400 Blows"), gives space to Henri Boulanger, a French subordinate working on a bureaucratic position at a British company, utterly lost and alone, until the day he gets fired from there, receiving as a gift a broken gold watch. With the money he still has, he decides to hire a hit-man to kill him since he's too yellow to kill himself. Why bother sticking around now that he really hit rock bottom, with no job, no people who care for him and being just another foreigner living in a cold and distant place.

But the man who brought us "Ariel" and "Shadows in Paradise" has to give Henri a turn-around that can save his life and also complicates things even more. He falls for a flower girl (Margi Clarke) who corresponds such love, they move in together, despite the fact he has nothing to offer to her but the hired killer (Kenneth Corley) is still tracking him down and he is destined to fulfill his contract and kill Henri. Typical of Kaurismaki, who always finds humor in desolated characters and awkward situations. Everything is strangely life affirming without getting near the corny clichés of Hollywood.

The union between Kaurismaki and Léaud is the main ingredient to enjoy such story, not as dark as it sounds but eventually nightmarish as Henri's problems becomes more and more unnerving (hilarious to some, but we all know that Aki's films are only amusing to very few who can actually laugh out loud - though that's not the director's intentions, he prefers the contained laughters). It's interesting to see Léaud becoming the anti-Doinel, here someone who is far removed from any chance of accomplishing anything, always escaping and giving up easily. But fate helps them both, in unexpected and intriguing ways. And we laugh at their confusion while facing the obstacles life throws at them.

Compared with other Kaurismaki films I've seen and Doinel's five films, "I Hired a Contract Killer" is miles away of being equally great as the fore-mentioned examples. And for the first time I identified more with the drama than with the comedy since most of the elements given were too hollow and so narrow with the drama that I couldn't find them much funny - characteristic of the Finnish creator but more effective in his other films. Another downer was having to deal with Léaud's poor English, practically impossible to understand. Why not make Henri meeting with a French girl, so there could be a real sense of connection between both (and captions so we can read instead of hearing forced accents)? Aside that, there's room for some fine suspense and a great musical cameo by Joe Strummer.

What's to be learned? With Doinel films I feel hope, courage and the sense that things can get better, even with some losses on the way. Now, with Henri's story, I know things can get worse but we can always push harder for one more day and see what happens next. A very needed film in darker times, because we all need to laugh at the absurd. 7/10

Among the few Kaurismaki films I have seen so far, this is the one I think the most accessible and I strongly recommend it. My impression of it is completely vivid as I have just watched it minutes ago from the box I was offered a year ago for my 30's: a great present for movie maniacs. Kaurismaki does not film Helsinki this time, but another capital:London, with the same kind of views, the same urban landscapes, the beauty and the strangeness, the same insisting and passionate obsession than Scorsese with his New York. You still can find the same taciturnity of characters (perfect Kenneth Colley as the killer: I was glad to recognize Admiral Piett from The Empire Strikes Back), the same type of slow narration, though this time, the story is far simpler to understand upon first visualization. It deals with life and its contradictions, the preciosity of it, changes of mind and regrets, how desire between two people can make you see things differently, make you want to live on ; love regardless of social discrimination, that is so beautiful and yet so ideal! Another great point in Kaurismaki's films consists in the appropriate inclusion of a more or less famous rock music: perfect Joe Strummer, RIP. A great moment of poetry in cinema and a perfect film fit for beginners in Kaurismaki.