Le havre (2011)

It is nice to see that Aki Kaurismäki has so many fans in NYC. Many of his films have been screend this fall in the IFC cinema. For sentimental reasons, I went to see Le havre on X-mas eve. I was terribly late, and had to run through Greenwich village to catch the film. I slumped down in the chair in the first row and was thrown into the utterly familiar world of Kaurismäki. You recognize the places, the stern-faced people, the story. Even the music seems familiar. Kaurismäki has returned to France, but his rendition of life in a port town does not rely on local details. Cafes and streets and apartments - look like they always do in a Kaurismäki film (a blend of realism and artificiality). I don't have a general opinion on whether this is a weakness in Kaurismäki's ouvre. Yes, they are mannered, romantic odes to the simple life and the bohemian way. His characters are familiar too. They are kind, or evil, and speak in essentials only.

The drama in the films could be highly political, but it turns out the material is not politicized, except for during a few moments in the film. Marcel Marx is a shoe-shiner but also a bohemian man. When he comes home from work his wife has dinner ready for him. When his wife gets sick and is hospitalized Marx' world is turned upside-down. One day, having lunch at the quay, he sees a small boy in the water. Le havre is a transit town for illegal immigrants en route for England. Idrissa, as the boy is called, has run away from the French authorities who found the container where he and his co-travellers were hiding. Marx, and his friend, help the boy. It is a beautiful film about kindness and help. At its best, Le havre is a heart-warming fairy tale that has a connection with complicated political realities. Goodness, here, is not described as anything particular: Marx simply sees the boy, and cares for him. A criminal inspector - modeled after every stylized rule in the noir book - simply regains his sanity and goes against his profession. I like that understanding of what goodness is.

On the other hand, there is a disturbing element of the film that has to do with the things I noted above, Kaurismäki's tendency to be locked into his own world. In this world, a bohemian has a wife that tends to his every need, lives for him, has dinner ready. Kati Outinen is of course good as always (I must admit that seeing her weary face and hearing her non-fluent French almost made me cry), but the presentation of the relationship between husband and wife is a bit disturbing in its elevation of traditional gender patterns.