An accomplished Kaurismaki story

Author: poikkeus from San Francisco
23 March 2012

In 1992, Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki directed LA VIE DE BOHEME, where he transplanted to Paris for a story of impoverished, failed artists on the cusp of society. A funny, sad film about art, love, and loss. Nearly twenty years later, Kaurismaki returns to France in LE HAVRE; while some of the humor remains, its story of the impoverished and dispossessed is even more affecting.

LA VIE... showed a painterly visual sense, all the more amazing that it was filmed in black and white. LE HAVRE boasts an equally striking visual sense, with scenes that seem to glow. That said, other elements of the production are less convincing - and at times. almost embarrassing. (For example, a group of black refugees are locked in a container crate for almost a week; when it's opened, no one's hungry or even concerned, and several are freshly shaved.) c'est vrai...ça m'a frappé aussi

LE HAVRE sets up the camera in a stationary spot - much like an old silent - giving the film a real resonance. But this affection for older filmmaking will be familiar for Kaurismaki fans; his silent, black and white JUHA uses the same minimalistic approach, with good results. If you're willing to forgive certain production details and the dependence on melodrama, LE HAVRE is a feel-good story of how those of modest means can help those in desperate straits. (LE HAVRE itself was directed under low budget.) The film's humanism is its saving grace. While the filmmaking is occasionally awkward, there's still a lot to be admired here.

Miracle and sadness in Le Havre

Author: Adam Gai from Jerusalem, Israel
12 November 2011

Like every fairy-tale, this film by Aki Kaurismaki is unbelievable, but this apparent fake doesn't hide a sad reality behind the good intentions of the simple people that help the illegal immigrant child to arrive finally to London, wherein we couldn't predict what kind of life waits for him.

A slow rhythm, (some scenes seem like stills), and a brilliant and strong color that contribute to the atmosphere of unreality, the frustration to the normal expectations of the viewers that are carried to imagine the worst, and receive on the contrary the sudden impact of the best, don't prevent to bring to the conscience the images of the cruel world that surrounds the miracle of solidarity that saves, perhaps momentarily, just one of the hundred persecuted.

The bad and the good boys are generally discovered by the camera, which leaves, significantly, in off the figure of the pitiless chief of policy, and introduces in darkness the figure of the denouncer. Le Havre is an optimist movie with a very dubious happy end.

Le Havre is a warmly felt drama with subtle humor.

Author: theworldmoviejournal from India
15 May 2012

Protagonist is Marcel Marx, A Shoeshiner, who makes a peaceful living with his wife Arletty and a dog Laika in city of Le Havre. He incidentally meets an African boy, Idrissa, who is being sought by French authorities as illegal immigrant. Marcel opens his doors to the boy and helps him make his way to join his mother across the water in London.

Despite the complication of Arletty's terminal illness, about which Marcel is not aware, the snooping of grim-faced inspector Monet, and the machinations of the neighborhood snitch, with the help of neighbors and friends that Marcel was deeply in debt to forgive everything for Idrissa, Marcel tries to help the boy.

Kudos to Aki Kaurismäki, the director of Le Havre, for his directorial talent he has exhibited in this movie. No loose ends, characterization and usage of every character is excellent and has kept it very simple by all means.Once in while you get to watch such an optimistic film that shows love, respect and tolerance for one another in a very simple and practical manner.

Blossomed Cherry Tree

Author: chaos-rampant from Greece
8 March 2012

This is a sweet, lightly intoxicating thing like a small glass of calvados under the wisteria in the evening. Kaurismaki has aged and his outcast and misfit characters aged with him, the quirks mellowed, the ferocious smoking toned down, the lines in the sometimes quietly astonished stone faces deeper, wearier, but imbued with almost ascetic serenity.

Some viewers have complained, why trivialize an actual problem in the manner of a fairy tale? A fair complaint for a problem perhaps more pressing than ever, especially in France and especially these days, with Sarkozi's desperate attempt to shore up votes for what looks like near-certain defeat in the upcoming elections by reverting to reactionary rhetorics from the far-right.

No, I believe the fairy-tale is the point. The idyllic neighborhood. The mannered caricatures of French people, with even the poorest having the time and fine sense of taste to leisurely enjoy their freshly baked baguette or glass of wine. The miraculous turn of events, explicitly acknowledged in the finale where kindness of this world is so overwhelming it even cures sickness. How could anyone miss this?But a certain emptiness has always been of the essence for Kaurismaki, deliberate, designed emptiness.

The world is always flat to that effect, two-dimensional. The characters lack any conventional depth to speak of and do not really grow or learn lessons. By contrast, the plots of the films often exhibit a life of spontaneous motion, the objectives intentionally abstract, journeys across town, to America, in search of coffee and cigarettes. Motion for the sheer musical capacity of life to fill the quiet, the room in the heart to do so.

So it is always a variation of transient worlds centered in the stillness of the present moment that Kaurismaki has studied and consistently delivered. What is so remarkable is that he achieves this without any layering whatsoever, as a single flow. This is his most Japanese film to date, even more concentrated flow than usual. Which is to say artificial nature that does not attempt to pass for the real thing but instead is empty space cultivated for beauty, a road-map for inner heart.

(I saw this together with the recent viral video KONY2012 and the contrast was amazing: that one, shameless artifice passing as nature, as truth, the real thing, contriving to motivate awareness several years after the fact and by selling merchandise, but was in truth both misinformed and morally dubious and even perhaps unwittingly manipulated agitprop in the service of shady foreign policy, while this one is simple, crisp, gracefully moral work, that does create awareness without any agendas.)

So it is very much the point that no one in the film is shown to wallow in misery, and most of the characters we meet would have plenty of reason to do so. Instead they enjoy this drink or meal together, whatever is at hand. And act with no complaint in the present moment to do what needs to be done. There is no meddlesome thought or proud ego to cloud the mind from the day's work, be it polishing shoes or helping out an immigrant kid.

This is the beauty of the thing: an idyll embedded with the purity of soul that gives rise to it and clear images only possible because of this cloudless eye. The parting image is of a blossomed cherry tree gently rocking in the breeze, among the most traditionally Japanese images. It encapsulates motion in stillness. The song of Zen.

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"Le havre" - a film full of sweetness, simplicity, love, ideals and yet everything's not too much. It just makes you feel good.

Author: arbatayragerai from Lithuania
7 November 2011

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

To my great pleasure, I have just seen this film. So, my impression and positive feelings, which I got from the movie, haven't vanished yet.

To describe it, well, I couldn't say this film has a very deep meaning, I couldn't say it offers some philosophic ideas to contemplate, I couldn't even say it's logic in every way. As a matter of fact, the film could be accused of being just an empty, trendy imitation of the past. A past, which has actually never existed, and which is just an unreal image of our imagination, created by idealizing times which have already gone. But, to my great surprise, I still enjoy watching it.

It's because I enjoy seeing such nice imitation, such nice image of life, which consists of a lot of idealism, which is idyllic and even Utopian. I bet many people miss idealism in their lives and this film just gives them what they want.As it is known,the concept of every movie is to imitate the reality even create a new reality, which consists of things which we lack in our real life. It's just like cinema genius Alfred Hitchcock said long time ago: "the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake". So this stands for the fact the film is good.

Being more certain, I like „Le havre", because it's nice to watch it. Every set is selected precisely. Voices of actors sound pleasantly. Everything is full of harmony in this film: characters communicate often, they help each other when troubles come in the movie. Marcel's wife does a lot for her husband, she doesn't even tell him she's dying (in order to protect him from suffering). Marcel does a lot for love too. He helps immigrant boy to find his origin.

Every resident of Le havre town stand together for the boy, they stand for love, for ideal and they manage to defeat the troubles, the threats which come from outside world. Of course, they do this, they show their idealism not too much, the film is not too „sugary'. The mechanism is quite opposite, it's something like „less is more": less feelings, showed exactly in the right time are less banal, more real, more influential.

Some people may laugh, find humor in some episodes of the film, some, especially those who are insensitive may find „Le havre" vast. Those who tend to conceal their feelings, may even hate the film. But it's just as they say – you love it, you hate it – it's the same, you simply can't manage without it. So that's why the film is suitable for a very wide range of people – I guarantee everyone would be affected by it one way or another.