Le Havre

Finland, France, Germany

2011

103 Min

Color

1.85:1

French, Finnish

Currently 3.8/5 Stars.
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EXEC Stéphane Parthenay, Hanna Hemilä

CAST André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Blondin Miguel, Elina Salo, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Ilkka Koivula, Evelyne Didi, Quoc Dung Nguyen, François Monnie, Pierre Étaix, Roberto Piazza, Jean-Pierre Darroussin

Cannes (In Competition): FIPRESCI Prize, Prize of the Ecumenical Jury - Special Mention, Karlovy Vary (Horizons), Melbourne (International Panorama), Locarno (Piazza Grande), San Sebastián (Zabaltegi-Pearls), New York, Toronto (Masters), Telluride, Chicago (Competition): Gold Hugo, Vancouver (Cinema of Our Time), Stockholm (Open Zone), Rotterdam (Spectrum)

Synopsis

In this warmhearted portrait of the French harbor city that gives the film its name, fate throws young African refugee Idrissa (Blondin Miguel) into the path of Marcel Marx (André Wilms), a well-spoken bohemian who works as a shoeshiner. With innate optimism and the unwavering support of his community, Marcel stands up to officials doggedly pursuing the boy for deportation. A political fairy tale that exists somewhere between the reality of contemporary France and the classic cinema of Jean-Pierre Melville and Marcel Carné, Le Havre is a charming, deadpan delight. —The Criterion Collection

Director

Aki Kaurismäki

Aki Kaurismäki did a wide variety of jobs including postman, dish-washer and film critic, before forming a production and distribution company, Villealfa (in homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965)) with his older brother Mika Kaurismäki, also a film-maker. Both Aki and Mika are prolific film-makers, and together have been responsible for one-fifth of the total output of the Finnish film industry since the early 1980s, though Aki’s work has found more favour abroad. His films are very short (he says a film should never run longer than 90 minutes, and many of his films are nearer 70), eccentric parodies of various genres (road movies, film noir, rock musicals), populated by lugubrious hard-drinking Finns and set to eclectic soundtracks, typically based around ‘50s rock’n’roll.

In the 1990s he has made films in Britain (I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)) and France (La vie de bohème (1992)). —IMDb

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Anton Williams

21May12

Technicolor mon amour.

Cristian

20May12

I wonder if this film, as it is, would have got the same appreciation if somebody less well-known directed it. Probably not. All in all, I'm glad I saw Leaud even for a couple of seconds.

msmichel

17May12

Have followed the work of Kaurismaki for years and it had been far too long since his last. A beautiful film very much a product of today's world. The fear of immigration and the bureaucracy of administering 'justice' framed within a story of a childless man who just wants to do the right thing. Wilms and Darraussin perfectly cast with the usual greatness of Kaurismaki's stock company familiar from so many pics.

Antonius-Blovk and Ben 94 like this

DK

23Apr12

One of the sweetest, anti-cynical films I've seen in a long while. Amazing how declarative and unrealistic the acting is, and yet how emotionally-effective. Similar in tone to Jarmusch's Broken Flowers, but occupying a Kaurismaki world all its own, made up of the smallest most beautiful touches (onions, jumpers, a blues record, breakfast on a sea-cliff).

msmichel likes this