Kaurismäki’s latest is deeply alert to the sensory pleasures of the world.
Criterion gives The Other Side of Hope, the second part of Kaurismäki’s proposed "refugee trilogy," a tip-top Blu-ray treatment.
It fulfills the vague sense of its aspirational title as a film led only by the guidance of its maker’s skeptical positivity.
Kaurismäki rhymes his characters’ feelings of alienation to the mise-en-scène’s pastel blues and decaying browns.
This festival in Galicia, northwest Spain, demonstrates a canny knack for curating thematically coherent shorts programs, emphasizing quality over quantity.
Kaurismäki’s film steels itself against prevailing trends, whether of early-’90s association or a more contemporary variety.
Criterion gives one of last year’s finest films an excellent transfer, finally bringing Aki Kaurismäki into the high-definition landscape.
One could argue that the drastic transformation is the point.
This deadpan musical saga is also a novelty headstone for the Soviet epoch.
What can we say about a film that makes a miracle seem like the most common thing in the world?
Aki Kaurismäki’s latest is amusing and humane in good measure.
A Dangerous Method unsettles with its lucid visions of release and repression.
With his latest, Nuri Bilge Ceylan is purely interested in slowly unveiling a thematic can of worms that will tear people apart one long take at a time.
Immigration politics are at the forefront of Le Havre.
If Cannes is the cinephile’s version of the Olympics, the media critics covering the event are its long-distance runners.
Tarr achieves an almost terrifying power but sometimes squanders it by hanging on too long.
A lot of the pleasure of watching this film comes from cinematographer Jørgen Johansson’s beautiful and expressive camerawork.
No trace of cuteness can be found in The Match Factory Girl, the toughest and most concentrated of the trilogy’s tragicomedies.
So, a “proletariat trilogy” from the eighties by a Finnish director? It doesn’t sound too delightful, does it?
Aki Kaurismäki is at it again, refurbishing his previous work and pawning it off as if it were new.