Interesting! My last post has been divided up like a poem. Hmmm? There are no such things as accidents.

JandK,

Thanks for kicking life into this moribund thread. I agree with you on the Jarmusch, Bresson, Wes Anderson comparison. Kaurismaki, like Jarmusch, seems to really like his downtrodden characters. I also agree that in, say, ‘Shadows in Paradise’ there is the slightest glint of a way out. But then we have ‘The Match Factory Girl’ where the guilty pleasure derived from watching the female lead poison her awful parents and lover is always accompanied by the sense that there really won’t be a nice way out for her. Likewise the almost upbeat ending of ‘Ariel’ couldn’t stop me from feeling concerned about the escaping couple’s fate. But Kaurismaki is funny – tragically funny. The opening of Ariel is unforgetable – the way, the father, gun in hand, tells his son that ( I paraphrase) ‘I’ve had it with this shit. But this is shit too. I don’t want yo to do this’, just before he goes to the bathroom to shoot himself. Moreover, I love the fact that this statement and action seems to be a perfectly plausible response to the Finland that is evoked in this movie. The way the son stolidly takes it all in is proof enough of this. I also love the way his characters seem to be the dumbest people on earth just because they wont speak unless they have too. After a while, you realise that their obdurate refusal to waste words marks them out as profoundly intelligent. Great stuff!