Aki Kaurismäki

Aki Olavi Kaurismäki (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈɑki ˈo̞lɑʋi ˈkɑu̯rismæki] ^ⓘ; born 4 April 1957) is a Finnish film director and screenwriter. He is best known for the award-winning Drifting Clouds (1996), The Man Without a Past (2002), Le Havre (2011), The Other Side of Hope (2017) and Fallen Leaves (2023), as well as Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). He has been described as Finland's best-known film director.^[1]

Aki Kaurismäki
Aki Kaurismäki at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival
Born	Aki Olavi Kaurismäki (1957-04-04) 4 April 1957 (age 68) Orimattila, Finland
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter

Career

After graduating in media studies from the University of Tampere, Kaurismäki worked as a bricklayer, postman, and dish-washer, long before pursuing his interest in cinema, first as a critic, and later as a screenwriter & director.^[2] He started his career as a co-screenwriter and actor in films made by his older brother, Mika Kaurismäki. He played the main role in Mika's film The Liar (1981). Together they founded the production company Villealfa Filmproductions and later the Midnight Sun Film Festival. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment (1983), an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's novel set in modern Helsinki. He gained worldwide attention with Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989). In 1992, the New York Times film critic Vincent Canby declared Kaurismäki "an original ... one of cinema's most distinctive and idiosyncratic new artists, and possibly one of the most serious.... [He] could well turn out to be the seminal European filmmaker of the '90s."^[3]

Personal life

In 1989 he emigrated with his wife, Paula Oinonen, to Portugal, saying "in all of Helsinki there is no place left where I could place my camera".^[4] As of 2023, he is still based in Portugal.^[5] In Helsinki, Kaurismäki is the co-owner of a complex, Andorra, that incorporates a cinema, several bars and a pool hall featuring a giant poster for Robert Bresson's L’Argent. It also features the jukebox from Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses.^[6]

Style

Aki Kaurismäki on Calamari Union's first night in 1985

Aki Kaurismäki in 1990

Aki Kaurismäki in 2012

Kaurismäki is known for his extremely minimalistic style. He has been called an auteur,^[7][8] since he writes, directs, produces and usually edits the films himself, and thus introduces his personal "drollery and deadpan"^[9] style. The camera is usually still.^[10] Events are shown in a plain manner and characters are usually left alone facing the consequences. However, despite their tragedies and setbacks, the characters do not give up and eventually survive.^[8]

Much of Kaurismäki's work is centred on Helsinki, such as the film Calamari Union, the proletariat trilogy (Shadows in Paradise, Ariel and The Match Factory Girl) and the Finland trilogy (Drifting Clouds, The Man Without a Past and Lights in the Dusk). His vision of Helsinki is critical and singularly unromantic. Indeed, his characters often speak about how they wish to get away from Helsinki. Some end up in Mexico (Ariel, Leningrad Cowboys Go America), others in Estonia (Shadows in Paradise, Calamari Union, and Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatjana). Kaurismäki also uses, on purpose, characters, elements and settings that hark back to the 1960s and 1970s.^[8]

Kaurismäki has been influenced by the French directors Jean-Pierre Melville, Jacques Becker, and Robert Bresson, the Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu, the American director John Cassavetes, and some critics have also inferred the influence of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. His movies have a humorous side that can also be seen in the films of Jim Jarmusch, who has a cameo in Kaurismäki's film Leningrad Cowboys Go America. Jarmusch used actors who have appeared frequently in Kaurismäki's films in his own film Night on Earth, part of which takes place in Helsinki.

Kaurismäki has been a vocal critic of digital cinematography, calling it "a devil's invention"^[11] and saying he "won't make a digital film in this life".^[12] In March 2014, however, he reconciled, saying that "in order to maintain my humble film oeuvre accessible to a potential audience, I have ended up in rendering it to digital in all its present and several of its as yet unknown forms".^[11]

Political views

The political context of Kaurismäki's work is very much influenced by his attitude to Finland's treatment of the working class. In his view, the social and political ramifications of class structures and lack of economic parity render lower-class workers replaceable cogs in an outdated machine.^[13]

In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, Kaurismäki signed a letter endorsing the UK Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 UK general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."^[14][15]

Kaurismäki has been a critic of Finland's immigration policy. When Iraqi refugees arrived in Finland, Kaurismäki said many people in the country "perceived that as an attack, like a war." He was alarmed by their reaction and decided to make a film, The Other Side of Hope, in an effort to "change the Finns' attitude." "I respect Mrs. Merkel," he said, referring to the German chancellor's open-door refugee policy, "She is the only politician who seems to be at least interested in the problem."^[16] In a 2007 interview with the film scholar Andrew Nestingen, Kaurismäki said: "The real disgrace here is Finland's refugee policy, which is shameful. We refuse refugee status on the flimsiest of grounds and send people back to secure places like Darfur, Iraq, and Somalia. It's perfectly safe, go ahead. Our policy is a stain among the Nordic nations. Shameful."^[17] In 2023, he said he was against Finland's entry into NATO.^[5]

In December 2023, alongside 50 other filmmakers, Kaurismäki signed an open letter published in Libération demanding a ceasefire and an end to the killing of civilians amid the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, and for a humanitarian corridor into Gaza to be established for humanitarian aid, and the release of hostages.^[18][19][20]

Filmography

Feature films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Editor	Notes
1983	The Worthless	No	Yes	No	No
	Crime and Punishment	Yes	Yes	No	No
1984	The Clan - Tale of the Frogs	No	Yes	No	No
1985	Calamari Union	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Also composer
	Rosso	No	Yes	No	No
1986	Shadows in Paradise	Yes	Yes	No	No
1987	The Final Arrangement	No	Yes	Yes	No
	Hamlet Goes Business	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1988	Ariel	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1989	Dirty Hands	Yes	Yes	No	No	TV Movie
	Leningrad Cowboys Go America	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1990	The Match Factory Girl	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	I Hired a Contract Killer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1992	La Vie de Bohème	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1994	Take Care of Your Scarf, Tatiana	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1996	Drifting Clouds	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1999	Juha	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2002	The Man Without a Past	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
2006	Lights in the Dusk	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2011	Le Havre	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[21]
2017	The Other Side of Hope	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[22]
2023	Fallen Leaves	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	[23]

Documentaries

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Notes
1981	The Saimaa Gesture	Yes	Uncredited	Uncredited	Co-directed with Mika Kaurismäki
1994	Total Balalaika Show	Yes	Yes	Yes
2013	Juice Leskinen & Grand Slam: Bluesia Pieksämäen asemalla	Yes	Concept	Yes	Documentary short film

Short films

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Editor	Notes
1981	The Liar	No	Yes	No	No	Medium-length film
1982	The Liar 2	No	Yes	No	No
1986	Rocky VI	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1992	Shit Happens	No	No	Yes	Yes
1996	Employement Agent	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
2002	Dogs Have No Hell	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Short film included in the anthology film Ten Minutes Older - The Trumpet
2004	Bico	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Short film included in the anthology film Visions of Europe
2006	The Foundry	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Short film included in the anthology film To Each His Own Cinema
2012	Tavern Man	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Short film included in the anthology film Centro Histórico

Music Videos

Year	Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Editor
1987	Thru the Wire	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Rich Little Bitch	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
	L.A. Woman	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
1992	Those Were The Days	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1993	These Boots	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
1996	Always Be a Human	Yes	No	No	No

As an actor

• The Liar (1981)
• The Worthless (1982)
• Huhtikuu on kuukausista julmin (1983)
• Apinan vuosi (1983)
• Viimeiset rotanrahat (1985)
• Calamari Union (1985)
• Ylösnousemus (1985)
• Shadows in Paradise (1986)
• Rocky VI (1986)
• I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)
• Shit Happens (1992)
• Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses (1994)
• Iron Horsemen (1994)
• Mustasilmä-Susanna ja lepakkoluolan aarre (1996)
• Aaltra (2004)
• Vandaleyne (2015)

Awards and protests

Kaurismäki's film Ariel (1988) was entered into the 16th Moscow International Film Festival where it won the Prix FIPRESCI.^[24]

Kaurismäki's most acclaimed film has been The Man Without a Past, which won the Grand Prix and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival^[25] and was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category in 2003. However, Kaurismäki refused to attend the Oscar ceremony, asserting that he did not feel like partying in a country that was in a state of war. Kaurismäki's next film Lights in the Dusk was also chosen to be Finland's nominee for best foreign-language film, but Kaurismäki again boycotted the awards and refused the nomination, as a protest against U.S. President George W. Bush's foreign policy. In 2002 Kaurismäki also boycotted the 40th New York Film Festival in a show of solidarity with the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, who was not given a US visa in time for the festival.^[26]

Kaurismäki's 2017 film The Other Side of Hope won the Silver Bear for Best Director award at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival.^[27] At the same festival he also announced that it would be his last film as a director, although the retirement was short-lived as he began filming another film, Fallen Leaves, in 2022, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023.^[28] Kaurismäki became the second director, after Paul Thomas Anderson, to win his third FIPRESCI Grand Prix.^[29]

List of awards

Cannes Jury Prize
2023 Fallen Leaves^[30]
Silver Bear
2017 The Other Side of Hope
Cannes Grand Prix
2002 The Man Without a Past
Cannes Ecumenical Jury Special Mention
1996 Drifting Clouds
Cannes Prize of the Ecumenical Jury
2002 The Man Without a Past
FIPRESCI Award
2011 Le Havre
FIPRESCI Grand Prix
2002 The Man Without a Past
2017 The Other Side of Hope
2023 Fallen Leaves
Jussi for Best Film
2006 Lights in the Dusk
Jussi for Best Debut Film
1983 Crime and Punishment
Jussi for Best Script
1983 Crime and Punishment
1996 Drifting Clouds
2002 The Man Without a Past
2011 Le Havre
Jussi for Best Direction
1990 The Match Factory Girl
1992 La vie de bohème
1996 Drifting Clouds
2002 The Man Without a Past
São Paulo Audience Award for Best Feature
1996 Drifting Clouds

See also

• Finnish cinema
• List of Finnish submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
• Klaus Härö