From the opening scene, Aki Kaurismaki's Le Havre revels in its optimism and deadpan humor, which can only be described as a fairy-tale like. Marcel, a shoe-shiner, witnesses one of his customers being gunned down in front of him, off screen, yet the eternal optimist merely says to his colleague, "At least he paid first". Le Havre is the story of a optimistic man who is dealing with hardship. His wife has been diagnosed with a disease, that almost means certain death. As fate would have it, Marcel meets through chance a young African refugee, Idrissa, and much of the film involves Marcel's unwavering desire to help Idrissa escape the authorities and get to London where he can be reunited with his mother. Marcel is really a greatly composed character, who is supported with great character details -his optimism towards his profession where he exudes, "there are few professions where one has so much human contact". I've always been a fan of Aki Kaurismaki's minimalist visual style, where the camera and framing is almost always stagnant. He uses motion in such a sparing way, that when it is used it's greatly effective at portraying emotion. The scene where Marcel's wife realizes she is very ill, is a great example of this, where the camera slowly punches in on her expressive sorrow in a quietly profound way. The same can be said for his use of lighting, while it's naturalistic, it's also very expressive during certain scenes, with the best example being the scene where little bob and his wife are reunited. Aki Kaurismaki's Le Havre is about one man's attempt to do good in a world that gives him little in return, being another simple, but effective story from Aki Kaurismaki.
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AuthorLove of all things cinema brought me here. Archives
June 2023
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