Series Site
"Few working filmmakers have established and cultivated a style and tone so completely their own—and immediately recognizable as such—as has the Finnish master Aki Kaurismäki, the mention of whose name immediately evokes laconic dialogue, fatalistic fatigue, purposeful and often immovable framing, and crack comic timing matched with a wit so dry it feels like it might crumble to the touch. The consistency of Kaurismäki’s vision, however, shouldn’t suggest stagnancy— since the appearance of his first feature, the 1983 Dostoevsky adaptation Crime and Punishment, he has continually been refining and exploring, turning out the bleakest of black-and-white and the most achingly sumptuous of color films, throughout his career showing unflagging fidelity to both the medium of analog celluloid and to the stories of the outcast and unwanted in modern society. A body of films humane, unsentimental, and begging to be seen in full."—Metrograph