(2 / 4)
Excerpt from article entitled "Shadows (also) in Paradise," published in its extended version, in Shangri-la. Drifts and fiction apart . No. 10. 2009.
Shadows (also) in Paradise II
Zen in the art of archery. E. Herrigelstubbornly The more you strive to learn to shoot the arrow to hit the target, the less will get the first and the more they alienate the latter. What stands in the way is your will.
What gender is part Shadows in Paradise? incorruptible Kaurismäki style lets you group the vast majority of his films, because if anything highlights the Finnish director is uncompromising in its principles. There are several critics who have applied labels to realism and neorealism Kaurismäki films, and specifically to Shadows in Paradise. Although his works do not reap its continuing ethical and aesthetic similarities do exist. In fact, the realist and neo-realist school has never been homogeneous, but each director has taken over the paths which suited him, justified a posteriori.
realism, movement with divergent ideologies, both aesthetically and politically, is the counterpoint to the fiction, masking the reality of reference, although is obvious that behind every representation remains true reality without substance. A major concern is realism formal assembly, free manipulation of reality. Therefore, the realistic film has one of its goals in seeking ways to come before the assembly, the formalist view that has its main supporter historic Eisenstein. The realist cinema always opposes the assembly has a crucial factor in the speech and calls for revealing the meaning and significance without altering its natural unity.
In this sense, Kaurismäki, with its narrative downtime, not abused in any way the assembly, rather bet by an invisible assembly in which one has the feeling that the strings are strung with little intervention. In favor of realistic assumptions, commonly used mounting Kaurismäki linear chronological order through different sequences, and prevents the assembly inverted. By the way, in any Kaurismäki films viewed is visible using flashbacks or flash-forwards . But it does make use of parallel editing, invented by Griffith with his saves in the last second, but not to accelerate the visual rhythm, always slow in the Finnish director, nor accentuate the suspense of a story in planes sandwiching crescendo, but rather as a tool for contemplation contrast between two characters.
goes without saying that this has more meaning at a conceptual level to practical, not in vain quintessential film is mounted under the laws of a speech. However, the ethical approach to the assembly as a tool to define the degree of realism has been the source of perennial debate. Also, the transitions in Kaurismäki's films are mostly by cutting, more symbolically linked transition to realism. In this sense, the Finnish director also avoids the artificial (fades, wipes, wipes, etc).
Realism in cinema is usually defined at two levels: through the processing of materials and through its theme. Kaurismäki's film is low budget and this is seen in Shadows in Paradise, where the scenarios are close (a floor, a supermarket, a bar, etc) and the effects exist. However, it is precisely because of its subject so many associate Kaurismäki films to neorealism, especially on the back of realism that implies a critical position and a degree of social concern. Neorealism, in short, which historically focused in only in Italy to peplum and the call Film white telephones, escapist cinema showing a country devoid of conflict, something like the sophisticated comedies of the United States in the years 30-40 and the optimism of Capra. Kaurismäki
not participate in some ethical constants of neorealism as the use of nonprofessional actors and natural light, while lights in Shadows in Paradise are gray and numb, without such saturation spikes, in the wake of Hooper in later films ( Lights in the Dusk ). However, many more matches and the same director Finn qualified some of his works, Drifting Clouds, for example, as an attempt "to modern neo-realism in color."
The abolition of any effect also reaches the narrative, bounded by the minimal use of discursive resources. In this regard, Kaurismaki said in an interview: "If the film takes a minimalist level, even the simple sound of a cough can be quite dramatic. If the main character slips and falls into a sewer, the viewer immediately interested in what's going to happen, even in movies throw people out of airplanes and they survived without even a scratch. The Bicycle Thief is a great example of how the viewer cares about the characters. People follow the plot carefully. The film is absolutely tragic. " These words, bressonianas resonances are the closest to an ideology and hint at the reason for their choices.
At this point it should be stressed his tendency toward stylization (desperate search for a style), the reduction of representation to the tiny phrase, a task that the Finnish filmmaker takes the base in ways that have resulted in a asceticism in his works, never spiritual, or what some have erroneously called transcendentalism. That abolition of special effects in the narration, dialogue, story and images ... is so exaggerated that Kaurismäki emerge as an effective counterpoint characterized precisely by the artificial scarcity, thus defining a unique style. Neorealism stylized or labeling is critical in this regard . Another feature that Kaurismäki neorealist discourse leads to the extreme is the absence of dialogue or artificial discourse. Its simplicity in speech, that which remains ( manent ) . The dialogues in Kaurismäki, dry, sharp and surreal, are scarce and no travel. Are somehow the result of neglect and suspicion of language, adapted to the social characteristics of the characters and their lives, out of breath or time for reflection.
terribly critical of his government which he accused of mental and physical destruction of Finland, carried out systematically by the government between 1975 and 1980, the truth is that all not evident in the viewing of his works, mostly by the viewer is not Finnish. Kaurismäki referred to Shadows in Paradise as a film denouncing the destruction. A gratuitous assertion and responsible, almost certainly because of ignorance of history. Either way, the critical evidence of his films would be sought in the representation of society through his characters, the industrialization of the feelings and the serialization behavior, life killed by the patterns of life and whose acceleration just isolating each other. That's their explicit condemnation, also reflected in Shadows in Paradise, and should fly over the aesthetic values.
The social aspect is more related to the theme that the message of condemnation, and that is why perhaps the "proletariat trilogy" be an excessive degree, although the characters that abound in it are wage-workers in a capitalist society that ruthlessly expelled and forced to sell their labor power, self-absorbed ray of hope in vain. Unemployment, marginalization, exploitation ... Kaurismäki films the lower classes, abstracted in jobs that do not produce any pleasure and are mere tools of survival, a toll unavoidable to prevent dementia. Resigned more than satisfied, the work provides a safeguard to madness and gives them some satisfaction to feel busy. Matti Pellonpää, for example, has nearly 20 years working and studying languages \u200b\u200bbut seems to have no intention of rising labor, or at least not outwardly. "I do not want anything from anyone! I Nikander. Ex-butcher, now garbage truck driver! Bad teeth and stomach, liver falling. More than I can say on my head! Ask not what I want, "says Matti Pellonpää in a conversation with Kati Outinen. A dull film stocks and contaminated by a miserable routine that seems to yield nothing special. No hints of originality: a job, someone to share the loneliness ... and save for the niche.
does exist in this position a willingness to incorporate the film to reality, a copyright neorealism, in color, stylish and with little punch verbal language: "The reality is much harder than I show. People in Finland do not think that I'm biased because it can recognize the facts that you see on the screen, "says Kaurismäki. Realistic sum for his significant choice of characters, torn from the lower layers, because of the topography that make up their sordid surroundings, but also some poetry because the styling of these realistic elements, with some blackness by the fatalism of lives and a large dark existential nihilism, where happiness to them offers is not enough because they have stopped believing. And despite sporadic construction happy ends, rough dreams of a desperate escape, but contained, the loneliness and its ghosts, without ever falling into a blind infatuation, rather myopic.
Other genres I drink Kaurismäki film is black but Shadows in Paradise is not so obvious, as it does in other works such as Ariel . An approach to film noir flying over the background and settles on visual aspects. Thus, the male characters Kaurismäki Matti Pellonpää as in this film, look exhibit aggressive and quarrelsome, manly-looking, low and heartfelt words. Losers, beaten by life and circumstances. Matti Pellonpää, faced with the flight of Kati Outinen, cold displays and single outburst, after she has not attended the event, is when you says "Cerda!". Minutes later when his friend go to visit, due to their absence from work, was declared mentally ill. Still, too much grief belies Kati Outinen face, feet in l a table, glasses on and seeing I know not where, perhaps with the eyes closed. Resigned to his fate, imp eager, like a gangster aware that only with his death will be redeemed and the film will premiere with the permission of the code. Cover behind dark glasses mitigate the reality that
and seek completely fictitious appearance of strength, Matti Pellonpää does not announce any sense nor seeking dialogue to find a solution or as simply responses . On the contrary, it reveals a distance Bogart takes a certain amount of mockery, spitting phrases he knows that are tearing the heart and hopelessly condemned to the cross. Nothing can do.
is no coincidence that the director Ariel enter a piece of footage The last refuge of Raoul Walsh, with Bogart was cast as the antihero's romantic life failed, big heart and ingenuity. A good reference for the characters of Kaurismäki, parodies of hard and unsavory types, unable to be understood and tear of life.
realism, movement with divergent ideologies, both aesthetically and politically, is the counterpoint to the fiction, masking the reality of reference, although is obvious that behind every representation remains true reality without substance. A major concern is realism formal assembly, free manipulation of reality. Therefore, the realistic film has one of its goals in seeking ways to come before the assembly, the formalist view that has its main supporter historic Eisenstein. The realist cinema always opposes the assembly has a crucial factor in the speech and calls for revealing the meaning and significance without altering its natural unity.
In this sense, Kaurismäki, with its narrative downtime, not abused in any way the assembly, rather bet by an invisible assembly in which one has the feeling that the strings are strung with little intervention. In favor of realistic assumptions, commonly used mounting Kaurismäki linear chronological order through different sequences, and prevents the assembly inverted. By the way, in any Kaurismäki films viewed is visible using flashbacks or flash-forwards . But it does make use of parallel editing, invented by Griffith with his saves in the last second, but not to accelerate the visual rhythm, always slow in the Finnish director, nor accentuate the suspense of a story in planes sandwiching crescendo, but rather as a tool for contemplation contrast between two characters.
goes without saying that this has more meaning at a conceptual level to practical, not in vain quintessential film is mounted under the laws of a speech. However, the ethical approach to the assembly as a tool to define the degree of realism has been the source of perennial debate. Also, the transitions in Kaurismäki's films are mostly by cutting, more symbolically linked transition to realism. In this sense, the Finnish director also avoids the artificial (fades, wipes, wipes, etc).
Realism in cinema is usually defined at two levels: through the processing of materials and through its theme. Kaurismäki's film is low budget and this is seen in Shadows in Paradise, where the scenarios are close (a floor, a supermarket, a bar, etc) and the effects exist. However, it is precisely because of its subject so many associate Kaurismäki films to neorealism, especially on the back of realism that implies a critical position and a degree of social concern. Neorealism, in short, which historically focused in only in Italy to peplum and the call Film white telephones, escapist cinema showing a country devoid of conflict, something like the sophisticated comedies of the United States in the years 30-40 and the optimism of Capra. Kaurismäki
not participate in some ethical constants of neorealism as the use of nonprofessional actors and natural light, while lights in Shadows in Paradise are gray and numb, without such saturation spikes, in the wake of Hooper in later films ( Lights in the Dusk ). However, many more matches and the same director Finn qualified some of his works, Drifting Clouds, for example, as an attempt "to modern neo-realism in color."
The abolition of any effect also reaches the narrative, bounded by the minimal use of discursive resources. In this regard, Kaurismaki said in an interview: "If the film takes a minimalist level, even the simple sound of a cough can be quite dramatic. If the main character slips and falls into a sewer, the viewer immediately interested in what's going to happen, even in movies throw people out of airplanes and they survived without even a scratch. The Bicycle Thief is a great example of how the viewer cares about the characters. People follow the plot carefully. The film is absolutely tragic. " These words, bressonianas resonances are the closest to an ideology and hint at the reason for their choices.
At this point it should be stressed his tendency toward stylization (desperate search for a style), the reduction of representation to the tiny phrase, a task that the Finnish filmmaker takes the base in ways that have resulted in a asceticism in his works, never spiritual, or what some have erroneously called transcendentalism. That abolition of special effects in the narration, dialogue, story and images ... is so exaggerated that Kaurismäki emerge as an effective counterpoint characterized precisely by the artificial scarcity, thus defining a unique style. Neorealism stylized or labeling is critical in this regard . Another feature that Kaurismäki neorealist discourse leads to the extreme is the absence of dialogue or artificial discourse. Its simplicity in speech, that which remains ( manent ) . The dialogues in Kaurismäki, dry, sharp and surreal, are scarce and no travel. Are somehow the result of neglect and suspicion of language, adapted to the social characteristics of the characters and their lives, out of breath or time for reflection.
terribly critical of his government which he accused of mental and physical destruction of Finland, carried out systematically by the government between 1975 and 1980, the truth is that all not evident in the viewing of his works, mostly by the viewer is not Finnish. Kaurismäki referred to Shadows in Paradise as a film denouncing the destruction. A gratuitous assertion and responsible, almost certainly because of ignorance of history. Either way, the critical evidence of his films would be sought in the representation of society through his characters, the industrialization of the feelings and the serialization behavior, life killed by the patterns of life and whose acceleration just isolating each other. That's their explicit condemnation, also reflected in Shadows in Paradise, and should fly over the aesthetic values.
The social aspect is more related to the theme that the message of condemnation, and that is why perhaps the "proletariat trilogy" be an excessive degree, although the characters that abound in it are wage-workers in a capitalist society that ruthlessly expelled and forced to sell their labor power, self-absorbed ray of hope in vain. Unemployment, marginalization, exploitation ... Kaurismäki films the lower classes, abstracted in jobs that do not produce any pleasure and are mere tools of survival, a toll unavoidable to prevent dementia. Resigned more than satisfied, the work provides a safeguard to madness and gives them some satisfaction to feel busy. Matti Pellonpää, for example, has nearly 20 years working and studying languages \u200b\u200bbut seems to have no intention of rising labor, or at least not outwardly. "I do not want anything from anyone! I Nikander. Ex-butcher, now garbage truck driver! Bad teeth and stomach, liver falling. More than I can say on my head! Ask not what I want, "says Matti Pellonpää in a conversation with Kati Outinen. A dull film stocks and contaminated by a miserable routine that seems to yield nothing special. No hints of originality: a job, someone to share the loneliness ... and save for the niche.
does exist in this position a willingness to incorporate the film to reality, a copyright neorealism, in color, stylish and with little punch verbal language: "The reality is much harder than I show. People in Finland do not think that I'm biased because it can recognize the facts that you see on the screen, "says Kaurismäki. Realistic sum for his significant choice of characters, torn from the lower layers, because of the topography that make up their sordid surroundings, but also some poetry because the styling of these realistic elements, with some blackness by the fatalism of lives and a large dark existential nihilism, where happiness to them offers is not enough because they have stopped believing. And despite sporadic construction happy ends, rough dreams of a desperate escape, but contained, the loneliness and its ghosts, without ever falling into a blind infatuation, rather myopic.
Other genres I drink Kaurismäki film is black but Shadows in Paradise is not so obvious, as it does in other works such as Ariel . An approach to film noir flying over the background and settles on visual aspects. Thus, the male characters Kaurismäki Matti Pellonpää as in this film, look exhibit aggressive and quarrelsome, manly-looking, low and heartfelt words. Losers, beaten by life and circumstances. Matti Pellonpää, faced with the flight of Kati Outinen, cold displays and single outburst, after she has not attended the event, is when you says "Cerda!". Minutes later when his friend go to visit, due to their absence from work, was declared mentally ill. Still, too much grief belies Kati Outinen face, feet in l a table, glasses on and seeing I know not where, perhaps with the eyes closed. Resigned to his fate, imp eager, like a gangster aware that only with his death will be redeemed and the film will premiere with the permission of the code. Cover behind dark glasses mitigate the reality that
and seek completely fictitious appearance of strength, Matti Pellonpää does not announce any sense nor seeking dialogue to find a solution or as simply responses . On the contrary, it reveals a distance Bogart takes a certain amount of mockery, spitting phrases he knows that are tearing the heart and hopelessly condemned to the cross. Nothing can do. is no coincidence that the director Ariel enter a piece of footage The last refuge of Raoul Walsh, with Bogart was cast as the antihero's romantic life failed, big heart and ingenuity. A good reference for the characters of Kaurismäki, parodies of hard and unsavory types, unable to be understood and tear of life.
Kaurismäki's protagonists, such as Samuel Beckett (sometimes comical silent film from the literature), stage through the dialogues a grotesque image, reflecting the pathos and despair of the human condition. A sort of celluloid Molloys memory and expressive skills void in free animal dimension, also sadomasochism. Neither the company nor repel dialogue loneliness and isolation. Theater of the absurd from the Finnish screens, and a vital representation in which life and death are one and belong to the same plane as the destination. That is why Kaurismäki's characters seem ready to abandon life, without being affected by the idea of \u200b\u200bdeath, nor do they clouding the stopwatch, the days when the ink of an existence that is consumed gradually, without wobbling . In short, sparkling dialogue, almost whispered, who rebel as he monologues desagarrados and hallucinating, and that stage the resignation to the understanding of reality. Silence translated into words. Small, but heartfelt.
back What I Want Is What I Was
Before the bed, Before The knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve Fixed
me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.
The Eye-Mote . Sylvia Plath
Before the bed, Before The knife,
Before the brooch-pin and the salve Fixed
me in this parenthesis;
Horses fluent in the wind,
A place, a time gone out of mind.
The Eye-Mote . Sylvia Plath
