Fallen Leaves (2023)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Serendipitous

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki, who has been around since the early 1980s, gives us Fallen Leaves, his first film in seven years, since 2017's The Other Side of Hope, and easily my favorite out of the ones I've seen. It's an effortless little romance, funny and sweet and sad, and — above all — deadpan (a keyword for all Kaurismäki films). It centers on two lonely people in modern-day Helsinki, where we hear news of the Israel–Hamas War on the radio. We meet Ansa (Alma Pöysti), who works in a market and is fired for "stealing" expired food items, and Holappa (Jussi Vatanen), who has a job that seems to involve spraying down wheel rims, and is fired for drinking on the job.

They meet at a karaoke bar, go to the movies to see Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die (Jarmusch and Kaurismäki have worked together, and their filmic sensibilities are often compared to one another), and Ansa gives Holappa her phone number. He promptly loses it, and she waits in vain for him to call. (As in Serendipity, they neglect to tell each other their names.) He begins hanging out at the movie theater in hopes that she'll show up again, and lo and behold, she does. She invites him for dinner, and he attends. Unfortunately, she catches him sneaking a drink — he's an alcoholic — and she informs him that that's where she draws the line.

He manages to give up drinking, but there are more bizarre, tragically comic roadblocks in store. It leads up to a magical ending, with a tip of the hat to Chaplin's Modern Times. And there's a cute dog! Whereas Serendipity had a tendency to annoy ("why didn't they just exchange names?"), Fallen Leaves feels just right, as if the universe itself had a deadpan sense of humor, playing a teasing game with the lovers. The film is funny in the most unusual of places; the humor sneaks up on you, especially since characters rarely smile or emote.

But it's also touching, such as in a tiny moment when Ansa rides the train, alone, and in the background, slightly out of focus, a woman decides to rest her head on her partner's shoulder. The part that made me laugh the most was a joke included for longtime, die-hard cinephiles: two men exit the screening of Jarmusch's zombie film and proceed to compare it to Bresson and Godard. Not everyone will get that, but the genius of Kaurismäki is that he doesn't care. This is his world, and we're invited in, provided we take things the way they are. I gladly accept.