Ombres au paradis

A simpleminded garbage man and a misanthropic supermarket checkout girl find the road to romance paved with ennui in yet another of Aki Kaurismäki's patented minimal mini-dramas. The prolific Finnish director pares down the love story to its most basic components: a man, a woman, and a mood of urban alienation shaded in tones of European gray. The film is entirely negligible, but that's (presumably) all part of its charm, and what passes for a plot is merely an excuse for Kaurismäki's deadpan comic ironies. It's easy to watch and even easier to ignore, looking like a rough sketch for a minor work by a filmmaker poised for bigger things.

Finns have a strange sense of humor, if "Shadows in Paradise" is any indication.

Filmmakers Wes Anderson and Jim Jarmusch have both claimed that they have been heavily inspired by the films of Aki Kaurismaki, and it's easy to see that influence, especially in the case of Jarmusch. "Shadows in Paradise" is a comedy, but lots of people will watch it and not know that they're supposed to be laughing. It's about a garbage collector and his tentative romance with a cashier, both of them plain, inarticulate, and not especially pleasant people to be around. The film has a supremely dead pan tone that, if I'm being honest, gets a bit monotonous. But on the other hand, the movie is pretty short, so even if tries your patience, it doesn't do so for long.

I had recorded both this and another Kaurismaki film, "Ariel," off of TCM and watched them together as a sort of Finnish double feature. Afterwards, I wanted to watch anything that was bright and shiny and featured unrealistically attractive people.

Grade: B+

After a stunning debut, Crime and Punishment, and a bizarre, experimental second feature, Calamari Union, Aki Kaurismäki began doing what he's best at: telling the stories of Finnish underdogs'everyday experiences. And it all started with Shadows in Paradise, the first installment of the "workers trilogy" (continued with Ariel and The Match Factory Girl), and arguably Kaurismäki's finest film (at least until he made The Man Without a Past). It also marked his first collaboration with Kati Outinen, who has become the very symbol, alongside the late Matti Pellonpää, of Kaurismäki's cinema.

Fittingly, Pellonpää and Outinen are the leading couple of shadows in Paradise. He reprises the role of Nikander he previously played in Crime and Punishment, with more English lessons (which originate his best line, at the end of the film) and trouble at work: his plans to start his own business get buried with his associate (Esko Nikkari), who commits suicide five minutes into the movie. While looking for a new job, he meets Ilona (Outinen), who works as a cashier in a Helsinki supermarket. The two start hanging out, eventually forming a sweet, if platonic, bond, occasionally threatened by Nikander's apparent cynicism.

The film's magic resides entirely in its minimalism: little dialogue, sober settings, raw, Finnish humor, real, likable characters and no overacting, as Kaurismäki tells his simple, universal, incredibly touching love story. Pellonpää and Outinen's understated, affecting performances complete each other, with valuable support from Sakari Kuosmanen as Melartin, Nikander's best friend, who even steals from his own daughter to finance his buddy's dates. Not that his behavior is exemplary, but it shows how much these people care for each other, and that's where Kaurismäki succeeds: he makes us emphasize with these characters despite their many flaws, and delivers an astounding, memorable picture.

A true masterpiece of Finnish film-making, from the best director that country has ever spawned.

The first part of AKI's "worker" trilogy is also the first time to see his works. It basically meets the expectations. The shooting is not artificial. It completely and truly restores the face of the bottom society in Finland and the various problems that men have to face in their life. In some places, people's loneliness is well interpreted, which is worthy of the word "lonely shadow" in the title. The director himself is also very handsome. He is not an ordinary actor at first sight. He looks forward to his future works.

Some random observations:

1. Kaurismaki's "paradise" is grimy city streets, garbage, landfills, jails, flophouses, shabby apartments. Two kinds of people inhabit this Eden: either the few, the snooty, the well off – or the subverbal, poorly educated quasi-lumpen stumbling about among the aforementioned sites. The settings, both exterior and interior, belong more to the England of "The L Shaped Room" or "Billy Liar" than to the Scandinavia of travel agency brochures.

2. Kaurismaki delivers virtuoso satire founded upon the stereotypical shy, wordless Finn. But he offers more by pushing beyond stereotype to display a deep familiarity with the kind of people he shows on the screen. An American director similarly so in tune with his people might be Kevin Smith. A possible British counterpart? Maybe Ken Loach.

3. "Shadows in Paradise" is also a testament to Kaurismaki's confidence in the cinematic medium itself, in its power to tell stories using sight and sound without principal reliance on the material of theater or literature – words. We are accustomed to the many films about how XX meets XY, where the characters express feelings, establish plot, indeed, do just about everything through words. Sometimes we even get entire orations, regardless of a film's "realistic" intent. Dialogue rules everything from the quippy screenplays of Nora Ephron or Preston Sturges to the tangly Gallic word-webs of Eric Rohmer. The similarities between Ernest Borgnine and Betsy Blair in "Marty" and Matti Pellonpaa and Kati Outinen in "Shadows in Paradise" end with "Marty's" theatrical, dialogue-soaked provenance. It would be hard to transfer this film of Kaurismaki to page or stage. The story would weaken and likely die in print or any exclusively verbal form.

4. For his comedy Kaurismaki employs a delay-deadpan technique, something familiar to anyone who has seen the "punishment" sequences in Laurel and Hardy's "Tit for Tat' (1935) or who remembers the standup routines of Jackie Vernon in the 60's. Kaurismaki's comedies – and "Shadows in Paradise" is a good example – prove the technique still achieves the desired result: laughs. And like Jackie Vernon or Laurel and Hardy, Kaurismaki makes his words just another ingredient in the comedy. They are well chosen and sometimes hilarious but enjoy no special preference.

5. The movie screened the other night on TCM with the host's caution that this is an unusual sort of romantic comedy – but why the caution? And why the need for any "category" in the first place? To call this a "romantic comedy" and then warn people about its "quirky" or "offbeat"nature does it a double disservice. The warning for possible category transgression either implies that the film is deficient for disregarding certain "rules", or cautions the audience that it will be disappointed, since the movie does things it probably won't accept. But comedy, like so many things in life generally, thrives on surprise. In "Shadows in Paradise", Kaurismaki presents modern, free, prosperous Finland as a bizarre and rather dismal place which he proceeds to mine for laughter and the occasional tear. Whatever a television host labels it, the movie manages to be funny, entertaining – and accessible.

6. A Kaurismaki movie has a distinctive "feel", as strongly trademarked as the comedies of Lubitsch or Sennett.