SILVER

[KUOLLEET LEHDET]
After a six-year hiatus, Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki (THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE) returns with this delightfully deadpan tragicomedy once again examining class, love and loneliness in modern-day Helsinki. Ansa (Alma Pöysti), a recently fired supermarket employee, is longing for connection. Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) is a depressed steel worker who drinks on the job. When the two lock eyes at a karaoke bar, a sweet but tentative romance ensues. However, a gust of wind — and Holappa's drinking — threaten to pull the two apart. Peppering the tale with omnipresent radio broadcasts reporting on the encroaching war in Ukraine, Kaurismäki finds the smallest bits of light amid the darkest of circumstances. This poignant, previously thought to be lost fourth film is an extension of Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy and earned the Jury Prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. Official Selection, 2023 Toronto and New York film festivals. DIR/SCR/PROD Aki Kaurismäki; PROD Misha Jaari, Mark Lwoff. Finland/Germany, 2023, color, 81 min. In Finnish with English subtitles. NOT RATED