"Fallen Leaves" - Film Review
Sometimes, a film is most miraculous when it revels in the human experience. A movie doesn’t have to be a lively, technicolor wonderland to awe its audience. Instead, it can just be simple: two people falling in love and the myriad of ways things can go wrong, but not in a screwball sense. Things go wrong in the way of the ever-persistent fear of heartache and loneliness. Such is the case in Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves, which very much makes the case that romantic comedies still have a place in our world, but they might be a little more tragic than we’re used to.
Ansa (Alma Pöysti) has recently been fired from her job stocking shelves at the local grocery store. It’s a job that she didn’t particularly like, and it didn’t provide her with much security. It was a zero-hour contract, meaning there was no minimum number of hours the store had to promise her. In looking for a new job, she meets Holappa (Jussi Vatanen). He is equally lonely and adrift. In each other, they find something intriguing. That breaks the mundanity they’ve grown far too accustomed to.
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Most popular culture romances are about young people. Teens and young adults in their early twenties who have an inherent sense of invincibility that comes from youthful ignorance. It’s something that we eventually grow out of, but what replaces it is a sense of trepidation. Sure, it can be called wisdom, or it can be called something else. A profound sense of loneliness that holds people back from changing. It’s what gets us stuck in our ways, relying on the vices we know that work, no matter how harmful they are. That’s where Fallen Leaves meets its characters. Holappa knows he drinks too much, but he drinks too much because he’s depressed, which makes him drink and feel more depressed.
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A lot of romantic comedies imply that love is the final puzzle piece in a person’s life. That humanity’s sole purpose is to find the other half that will make them whole, but that’s a reductive way of looking at things. Love, Fallen Leaves argues, cannot single-handedly save the day. It’s not the instant, miraculous cure-all that other films make it out to be. When Ansa and Holappa find each other, their worlds do not change overnight. They still work the same monotonous jobs for far too little pay, but to be loved is to be encouraged to be the best version of yourself. Fallen Leaves shows the work it takes to change, the stumbles along the way, and the beauty of earnestness. It reminds us that no matter how old we grow or how bleak our surroundings, we must not forget to hope.
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