Ariel

Ariel

Ingmar Bergman made a film at the beginning of his career called “It Rains on My Future” and that is what I was thinking of while I watched “Ariel.” This is the new film by Aki Kaurismaki, the Finnish director whose movies have been winning prizes at festivals all over the world and inspiring feature stories in film magazines that anoint him as the best young director in Europe. I went expecting to see the new Fassbinder or Herzog or Almodovar, and what surprised me was how traditional this movie is; it’s a despairing film noir with a ‘happy’ ending that rubs our noses in its irony.

The hero is Taisto, a miner who loses his job when the mine closes down. He sits with a friend in a cafe; they are both depressed. The friend gives Taisto his old Cadillac convertible, then walks into the men’s room and blows his brains out. Taisto drives south to Finland, where he quickly has his life savings stolen by muggers. He gets a day-labor job, gets a bed in a Skid Row mission and then falls instantly in love with the meter maid who throws away her parking tickets and goes for a ride in the Cadillac.

Meeting her is lucky for him, but life will not be kind to Taisto, and “Ariel” tells one crushing blow after another until he finally hits bottom. It’s like one of those 1940 B movies (“Detour,” maybe) where the hero tells you on the soundtrack that his luck is always bad, and darned if he doesn’t turn out to be right.

One of the things that sets this movie apart from most others is its physical clumsiness. These people don’t move like athletes or dance like Fred Astaire. They walk like real people walk because they’ve got someplace to go. When somebody runs, he looks like somebody who’s not used to running. When a cop tears around to nab somebody, he runs with his feet flat on the ground and grabs him in an awkward and uncoordinated tussle.

This clumsiness adds conviction; events seem to happen in a world that is naive and direct. A bank robbery doesn’t end with a sophisticated action sequence involving high-tech explosives and getaway cars, but with money spilled all over the sidewalk when one of the robbers drops the bag. The dialog is blunt, the motives are simple, the characters lack physical grace -and this works for “Ariel,” because Kaurismaki wants us to believe in these people. He wants us to care for them.

The hero is played by Turo Pajala (who bears a certain resemblance to Bruno S., from Herzog’s “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser”). He has those heavy eyelids, that down-turned mouth, that air of having been born victimized. This guy can’t even walk into a bar without getting hit in the face with a flying beer mug; his life has been one long succession of sucker punches. And Kaurismaki surrounds him with other characters who are on roughly the same wavelength: Misfortune is their companion.

The meter maid has a young son by another man (he died while fixing her TV set), and this kid seems destined to be luckless; he reads his comic books behind Coke-bottle glasses while life bounces him up and down on its knee.Well, you’ll say I’ve made it sound depressing as hell.

“Kaur’s” first film I’ve ever watched and from this, I’m now interested in more. His vision is unique. It’s not the vision of a flamboyant fashionista with trendy new philosophies; rather, it’s that of a middle-aged man who has discovered how to make films that reflect his wounded soul. “Ariel” represents those without any voice with more credibility than most angry movies because it doesn’t appear to be angry at all. And what else can you say about such a last shot except maybe it’s the only truly furious moment in this entire film?

Watch Ariel For Free On Gomovies.