Aki Kaurismaki: “Offering a future for humanity” is Dead Leaves’ ambition to see in cinema.

Last Cannes Film Festival finalist and Jury Prize winner, Aki Kaurismäki’s new feature Dead Leaves opens in theaters this Wednesday. This is the director’s 21st solo film and it showcases his inimitable style.

Dead Leaves tells the story of the meeting of two lonely people, whose budding love is thwarted by fate. The main characters are Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, both appearing in front of Kaurismäki’s camera for the first time.

The latter is a Finnish director best known for his free adaptation of Andersen’s fairy tale The Match Girl (1990). At Cannes, His Man Without a Past (2002) won the Grand Prix and the Best Actress prize for actress Kathy Outtinen.

In Dead Leaves we find the filmmaker’s favorites, namely two proletarians who meet and experience a difficult love story, but also a radio that only covers disasters, covers of musical standards in the Finnish version and the representation of professions with obvious hard work. The feature film is also saturated with movie references (to Godard and also to Chaplin) that absolutely do not obstruct the view unless we acknowledge them.

Dead Leaves approaches all of this with a lightness that never detracts from the story it’s telling or its characters. Because the film’s ambition is to tackle the anxieties of the modern world, the filmmaker admits, quoted in the press kit:

“(…) My pain in the face of futile and criminal wars finally led me to write a story about what humanity has to offer: the desire for love, solidarity, respect and hope in others, in nature and in everything. Whether he is dead or alive, he deserves it.”

A very intelligent and accessible film for the majority of the public, which is undoubtedly its greatest strength.