Godfather Kaurismäki and his new movie

Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre would look rather different had actress Elina Salo been an early riser or had the director himself not been indebted to a Finnish brewery...

Aki Kaurismäki

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By Veli-Pekka Lehtonen
     
      In movies everything is possible, but few things are coincidental. The end result is composed of fragments.
      Many people will find links from Aki Kaurismäki’s new feature film Le Havre to European migration policies and to film history.
      But how does one explain that in the film, up on the shelves of "a French harbour bar" there is a row of soft drink bottles with conspicuous Finnish labels?
     
I asked director Kaurismäki about this minor detail in Cannes.
      There were two answers.
      The first answer was an aesthetic one: according to the auteur, the bottles from the Laitila soft drink factory with their retro-style labels and shape complimented the film’s look beautifully.
      The second reason was a more pragmatic one: Kaurismäki used the bottles to pay off a debt.
     
Laitila is a commonly-used cooperation partner in Finnish film projects.
      According to Kaurismäki, Laitila had sponsored Kaurismäki’s Sputnik Company’s previous production, the 2009 film called Bad Family.
      The film was produced by Kaurismäki. Its director Aleksi Salmenperä, however, is known for his critical views with regard to commercial matters and sordid product placement did not suit his film.
      So, the master ended up paying his apprentice’s dues in his own movie.
      The outstanding debt has now been settled, Kaurismäki explained in Cannes.
     
The director has said that he picked the French songs featured in Le Havre from his own record collection.
      The red wine consumed in the film has also been carefully selected.
      In one of the pivotal scenes of the film, a character called Inspector Monet, who wrestles with his dignity, orders not cognac but a certain red wine.
      A bottle of Domaine de Courbissac 2006 is not just any old house wine.
      It comes from the French vineyard of the German film producer Reinhard Brundig, who happens to be a long-time supporter of Kaurismäki.
      The fact that the wine is mentioned at all was Kaurismäki’s gift to Brundig, who was a co-producer on Le Havre and recently celebrated a round-numbers birthday.
     
For many moviemakers, the film crew is like a big extended family. In Kaurismäki’s films the crew gathers to eat together - from porcelain plates, so they say.
      Making movies is all about counting costs. With catering one should never be stingy, Kaurismäki said last week in Helsinki. “On the contrary, those are the expenses one should multiply up by a factor of ten”, he charged.
      Kaurismäki also had some of his real family members involved in the making of Le Havre. His spouse Paula Oininen’s paintings decorate walls in some of the film's interior shots.
      And once again the director’s dog is also featured in his film.
      Le Havre’s Laika is a fifth-generation Kaurismäki film canine.
      Her role name is also Laika.
      According to the director the dog is still very much a beginner in the acting profession and would probably have missed her cues and messed up her lines had she been called by any other name.
     
The Finnish actresses Kati Outinen and Elina Salo, on the other hand, have proper character names in the film.
      Outinen has been Kaurismäki’s trusted member of the starting XI already for a quarter of a century - because of her “asymmetrical face”.
      The actress’s French may be a bit rusty, but that is why we have dubbing, after all.
      Elina Salo, 75, has not made any films in almost a decade.
      Her previous role was also in a Kaurismäki release.
      Salo no longer agrees to make films with anyone else except Aki Kaurismäki.
      The reason is pretty prosaic - Salo is not an early riser.
      “You see, Aki never begins to shoot before noon”, Salo reasoned in Cannes.
     
The plot in Le Havre, which centres around an immigrant youth, is very personal to Kaurismäki.
      Children are seldom featured in Kaurismäki’s films, but according to the director, Le Havre’s central role would have belonged to his Colombian-born godson, who has been adopted to Finland.
     
Kaurismäki’s godson Joonas Tapola acted already in the 2006 film Laitakaupungin Valot (Lights in the Dusk), in which Tapola’s character takes part in saving a vagrant knocked about by life.
      The young migrant boy’s role in Le Havre’, however, would not have suited Tapola.
      He has already turned 18 and does not speak French.
      Instead, the part is interpreted by pre-teen Blondin Miguel, who was found for the role through auditions.
      Miguel’s real-life parents fled to France from civil war-ravaged Angola.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 10.9.2011


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Aki Kaurismäki abandons his long boycott against Academy Awards (12.8.2011)

See also:
  Kaurismäki´s Le Havre wins International Critics´ Prize at Cannes (23.5.2011)

Links:
  Le Havre (Wikipedia)
  Le Havre on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

VELI-PEKKA LEHTONEN / Helsingin Sanomat
veli-pekka.lehtonen@hs.fi