Aki Kaurismaki: Two Films in Close-up (to the history of "New Finnish Cinema")

Abstract

Since the French "nouvelle vague" of the late 1950s the world cinema has experienced a succession of "waves" which first rolled around some European countries and by blowing up cinematic traditions to this or that extent, led to the birth of the so-called "new cinema" (e.g. in Czechoslovakia or in Germany in the 1960s - 1970s). In Finland the similar process in its local variant occurred in the 1980s. For the most part it was connected with the Kaurismaki brothers' films, primarily with the works of the younger brother, Aki. By the early 1990s he became one of the renowned masters of not only Finnish but the "new European cinema".
This article doesn't aspire to give a full detailed analysis of Aki Kaurismaki's film career. Instead, by concentrating on two "polar" films made by this original director, it presents an attempt to line out the range of his creative work and some characteristics of his poetics