Le menteur

Valehtelija (1981)

Valehtelija is an enjoyable pastiche of Breathless and other French New Wave films in which Aki Kaurismaki plays Ville Alfa, a young man with exceptional lying skills and a way with words. He treats people - his girlfriend and family members - badly and is extremely selfish. I found him both funny and sad.

Thanks to the clever writing and direction, the movie is quite successful in making Helsinki feel like Paris of the 60s. Ville Alfa's friends are intellectuals who are talking about literature and just hanging out, taking it easy. They bring some nice humor to their scenes.

I remember reading from a movie preview that after Valehtelija was premiered at the Tampere film festival in 1981, "everyone there knew, that it was something significant, and that it was the start for something big". Well it sure was. It was the beginning of a new era in Finnish film making. Kaurismäki brothers (especially Aki) have achieved a status of national icons in Finnish film making over the past years, and not for in vain.

Valehtelija is still more than just a milestone in Finnish history. it's a brilliant picture. It's funny, skillfully filmed, and the dialogue is Aki at his best. The story is about a pathological liar, who's circle of friends contains of sad young men who think they're some kind intelligentsia. The liar "Ville Alfa" played by Aki Kaurismäki is in deep self-deception and thinks very high of himself as a misunderstood artist. Along the way most of his friends discover the reality behind his mysterious and exciting emotional shell, and time to time Ville is having some tough times believing in it even himself.

Aki is known to be a fan of French cinema, and it can be seen on Valehtelija also. It's not just the style of movie-making, but the whole movie is clearly a loose rewrite of Jean Eustache's La maman et la putain (The mother and the whore), it has the same theme, the dialogue is done in a very similar way, and the main character is conspicuously similar with Ville Alfa. Although Valehtelija is a lot better. La maman et la putain lasts 220 minutes and Valehtelija lasts only 53 minutes, and it still has managed to get a lot more from the same subject.

Aki later made another picture in 1992 - La Vie de bohème (Bohemian life) which is also based on the same self deception and pathological lying- theme, but it's even better than Valehtelija. It also comes clear that it's no secret that Aki was inspired by Jean Eustache, since Jean-Pierre Léaud, whom was the main part actor in La maman et la putain, is in the cast of La Vie de bohème.

If you have seen any of these tree films mentioned above, or if they even have caught your interest, I strongly suggest you to watch them all, or at least Valehtelija and La Vie de bohème. They are a great combination of poetic French- and melancholic Finnish storytelling.