Dir: Aki Kaurismäki | Cast: Andre Wilmes, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Kati Outinen, Blondin Miguel, Evelyne Didi | French with English subtitles. Cert12
Finnish director, Aki Kaurismäki has invented his own genre of ‘contemporary retro’ with an improbable and deadpan drama set in 1950s Le Havre. It’s a drôle French version of The Archers that doesn’t take itself too seriously. You know the kind of thing: an everyday story of gentlefolk in a close-knit community where a kindly lawyer-shoe-shiner (Wilmes) is harbouring a nicely-behaved child deportee, who also happens to be black, from the clutches of absurdly buttoned-up and ineffectual Inspector Monet. Jean-Paul Darroussian gives a tongue-in-cheek turn in the style of Inspector Clouseau.
The man in question is Marcel Marx. At first he strikes an odd figure as this desiccated do-gooder, with his dog-eared existence and wife Arletty who’s also seen better days. But these two are likeable and happy in their threadbare existence, making ends meet with the support of local traders who expect nothing in return for their daily supplies. The grocer (Francois Monnie), the baker (Evelyne Didi) and the brassy barmaid, with her endless aperitifs ‘on the house’ are all well-cast and amusing. There’s a comforting rhythm to this bizarre harbourside drama. Authentic yet highly unlikely, you wish – in some ways – that life was as simple as this. Billed as a comedy there are dark moments too, when Arletty gets cancer and Darroussin goes on the prowl with a pineapple, but this is downtown utopia not Les Miserables.
Kaurismäki originally had the idea to do the uplifting French tale along the lines of “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, but opted only for the latter: “The other two were always too optimistic. But fraternité you can find anywhere, even in France!” Though life is sometimes gloomy in cloudy Le Havre, Aki makes sure the clouds have a silver lining. MT ©
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