The great Finnish director is finally back on the big screen. Fallen Leaves will have its world premiere, in competition, at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival on May 22nd.
One of the most important living directors, Aki Kaurismäki hadn’t made a film since 2017, the year in which The other face of hope it was presented at the Berlinale, where it won a Silver Bear for best director. Now, finally, the Finn is back to give us another film, which will be screened in competition, as a world premiere, on 22 May at the Cannes Film Festival 2023.
The film is called Fallen Leaves is described – without particular surprises – as a “gentle tragicomedy” and represents the fourth chapter of the so-called “Losers Trilogy”started in 1986 with Shadows in Heaven and continued in 1988 with Ariel and in 1990 with The match girl. According to the production “with this film Kaurismäki pays homage to Bresson, Ozu and Chaplin, telling a story about those things that could bring the sense of humanity into the future: the desire for love, solidarity, hope and respect for other beings human beings, for nature and for everything living or inanimate”.
Here is the first official trailer of Falles Leaves:
This the plot of the film:
Fallen Leaves tells the story of two lonely people (Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen) who meet by chance in the Helsinki night and try to find the first, one and only love of their lives. Their path to this honorable goal is complicated, however, by the man’s alcoholism, lost phone numbers, not knowing each other’s names or addresses, and the general tendency in life to put obstacles in one’s way. seek your own happiness.
