The Criterion Collection

If the raves coming from this year’s Cannes Film Festival for Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre had you wondering “Aki who?” then it’s time you got acquainted with the sweet and sourpuss cinema of this great Finnish director. Kaurismäki is one of contemporary international cinema’s most distinct voices: a chronicler of the ennui of financially strapped Helsinkians, he makes the specific plight of his countrymen universal through empathetic gallows humor.

With his 1990 film The Match Factory Girl—part of our twelfth Eclipse series, Aki Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy—Kaurismäki took his instincts for black comedy to their grimmest extremes, telling the tale of an industrial drone (his morose muse, Kati Outinen) who visits methodical revenge on all who have contributed to her daily dehumanization. The movie will put a tooth-grinding grin on your face. Check out this scene to get a sense of Kaurismäki’s artfully static aesthetic: in it, our hangdog heroine, Iris, goes looking for love at the local pub. You get many Kaurismäki touchstones, including his skillfully dialogue-free visual storytelling, his twisted sense of humor (so clinical and detached you feel dared to laugh), and his ironic use of pop music and color (love that bright orange soda!).