“A continual pleasure,” - Variety
Since the early 1980s, Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki has been achieving a quiet miracle – making films that gladden the heart the most when they’re at their most unflappably lugubrious. Le Havre offers us the director’s usual menu – poker-faced acting, weather-beaten faces, political compassion, hyper-stylized staging and decrepit bar room interiors. But there’s something fresh in this new film.
Marcel Marx (André Wilms) is a philosophical ex-artist in the French port, trying to eke a living as a shoeshine man. He lives in impoverished happiness with wife Arletty (Outinen) in a working-class neighbourhood. While Arletty is away in hospital, the shoeshiner befriends Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), a young African immigrant on the run from police. Marcel offers Idrissa shelter and tries to find a way to reunite Idrissa with his mother.
The director’s regular cinematographer Timo Salminen shoots with meticulous style, bringing an almost comic-strip economy both to exteriors and to the sets. French comedy legend Pierre Étaix contributes a sympathetic cameo and, as ever, Laïka is the best-lit mutt in European cinema. - Jonathan Romney, Screen International
Winner, FIPRESCI Prize, Cannes FILM FESTIVAL