Le Havre

Aki Kuarismaki's Le Havre and Phillipe Lioret's Welcome both tackle the same subject matter but in wildly different styles. Some might feel the artificial, almost throwaway, nature of Le Havre irritating, but others will welcome the whimsical touches to what has already been documented with the necessary solemnness.

Marcel Marx (Wilms) is sixty-year old former bohemian who has taken to shining shoes to make ends meet in the sunny French port. When his wife Arietty (Outinen) falls seriously ill and is hospitalised, Marcel is left alone, but his fortunes change when he meets thirteen-year old African refugee Idrissa (Miguel), on the run from the police. Hunted down by the stern-faced Inspector Monet (Darroussin), Marcel needs the help of his neighbours to keep Idrissa hidden…

That synopsis can't hint at the quirky goings on here. With his trench coat, moustache and blank stare, Monet looks like he was a forgotten character from Le Samourai or a 70s French thriller, and that's just one element of this offbeat comedy. We're in typical Kaurismaki territory. Oddball characters are played by actors who seem more concerned with hitting their marks than emoting their lines. The settings, with their flimsy walls and hard shadows, have a very theatrical vibe to their layout. Short questions, asked by characters that stand rigidly stiff with their hands stuck to their side, are answered directly and definitively and straight to camera by characters mimicking the same pose. Film buffs will have fun pointing out Le Havre's influences (Bresson, Melville) but even those not up on French cinema can see Napoleon Dynamite in its style.

Le Havre revels in its oddity. It boasts a massive heart, finds the occasional moment of hilarity and if one was to do a little digging they'd find a darker movie under the levity. Nothing about it feels real, though. Not for a moment. Do movies have to? That's the thing about Kaurismaki's movies: they do tend to stick with you afterwards, forcing you question what you expect from film. Maybe that's enough.