In a movie year rife with grand, three-hour opuses from auteur filmmakers comes a slender 81-minute gem that outclasses them all. Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen…
In a movie year rife with grand, three-hour opuses from auteur filmmakers comes a slender 81-minute gem that outclasses them all. Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” short, sweet and utterly delightful,
Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves,” short, sweet and utterly delightful, is the kind of movie that’s so charming, you want to run it back the moment it’s over. Kaurismäki, the writer-director Finnish master of the deadpan, has for nearly four decades been making minimalist, clear-eyed fables about mostly working-class characters in harsh economic realities. The same could be said for one of the main characters in the plaintive and tender “Fallen Leaves."