Fallen Leaves
The Match Factory/ MUBIA man and a woman lock eyes across the room. They hold their gaze for a few seconds. The woman shyly looks away as the man, taken aback by his own emotions, awkwardly lights a cigarette in his mouth. The first encounter between Ansa (Alma Pöysti) and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a classic cinematic portrayal of falling in love: that inexplicable gravitational pull between two human beings, conveyed without spoken word, with close-ups of faces that will inevitably collide in a kiss before the credits roll. The setting and look of Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves is timeless, with its 35mm cinematography and blend of ‘70s and ‘80s Finnish locales, but the film is as timely as possible.
Finland has had a centuries-long troubled relationship with Russia, with various wars and invasions that shaped the European country’s politics and culture. When Putin invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Finland was arguably the country that most felt fear of repercussions, fear that they may be next in line. Kaurismäki recreates the style of his Proletariat Trilogy (Shadows in Paradise, Ariel, and The Match Factory Girl), which is very cozy and comfortable, and breaks it with reminders of real life: old-timey radios are always turned on in Fallen Leaves, with reportages of the Ukrainian invasion disrupting the lives of Ansa and Holappa.
The disruption is much more psychological than it is literal. After all, Russia has yet to attack Finland in any way over the past two years, and the characters in the film are not directly affected by what is happening two thousand kilometers south of them. But the guilt remains: how can Ansa think about starting a relationship with a man – who, by the way, shows clear signs of alcoholism and depression – when hundreds of innocents are being murdered on the same continent? How can she pretend that everything is fine when she can barely make ends meet? How can she love, when the overwhelming hate of evil men could have destroyed her life instead of those of Ukrainians?
On its surface, it is easy to see Fallen Leaves as “just another deadpan romantic comedy”, but it is its political context that truly elevates it to something special. Despite the looming shadow of war, Kaurismäki injects so many beautiful, tender, and memorable moments of humanity into the story, turning Fallen Leaves into a hang-out movie. Holappa visiting a karaoke club with a friend, he and Ansa having their first date in a movie theater, Ansa adopting a stray dog… There is so much love and compassion for these characters on display that, regardless of all the hardships they experience throughout the film and the countless mistakes that both characters feel, their unavoidable union at the end of the film feels like a necessary blanket of comfort.
Other filmmakers would have Fallen Leaves end bitterly, maybe to remind viewers that not all stories end well, but sometimes it is important to give people hope, to tell them that there should not be shame for feeling love while others suffer. After all, life is meant to be lived, not witnessed, felt to the fullest, and all of the cold and sadness that freezes over the two lovers in Helsinki quickly melts as Alma Pöysti smiles such a warm, genuine, real smile. A smile that says, “Maybe, just maybe, everything will be okay after all.”