Synopsis
A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.
2017 ‘Toivon tuolla puolen’ Directed by Aki Kaurismäki
A restaurateur befriends a Syrian refugee who has recently arrived in Finland.
Sherwan Haji Sakari Kuosmanen Kaija Pakarinen Niroz Haji Janne Hyytiäinen Ilkka Koivula Nuppu Koivu Simon Al-Bazoon Tuomari Nurmio Abdi Jama Antti Virmavirta Timo Torikka Olli Varja Pia Riihioja Kati Outinen Maria Järvenhelmi Katja Tolonen Mohamed Awad Seppo Väisänen Milka Ahlroth Karar Al-Bazoon Ismo Haavisto Tommi Eronen Vesa Häkli Dome Karukoski Pekka Wiik Erkki Lahti Mikko Mykkänen Minna Maskulin Show All…
Den andre siden av håpet, Pakolainen, 희망의 건너편, L'altro volto della speranza, L'Autre côté de l'espoir, El otro lado de la esperanza, O Outro Lado da Esperança, Po tamtej stronie, Другата страна на надеждата, Друга страна наде, Lys I Mørket, Die andere Seite der Hoffnung, По ту сторону надежды, 希望的另一面, Umudun Öteki Yüzü, По той бік надії, Η Άλλη Όψη της Ελπίδας, Druhá strana naděje, Cealaltă parte a speranței, 希望在世界另一端, הצד האחר של התקווה, 希望在彼方, Cerības otra puse, Ljus i natten, 希望のかなた
Like Roger Federer’s forehand or Jiro Ono’s sushi, Aki Kaurismäki’s deadpan is one of those beautiful things that’s been refined beyond all reason over years of intense practice, eventually approaching a perfection that makes it easy to predict but impossible to deny.
Consider one early bit of business in the Finnish filmmaker’s latest fable, a wordless sequence in which a middle-aged man named Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves his wife (Kaija Pakarinen). It’s the dead of night. The man is wearing a suit and looking at his reflection in the bedroom mirror; his wife is pouring herself a drink at the tiny table in the corner of their kitchen. A fat cactus sits next to her booze. Wikström saunters over, places…
The Other Side of Hope
TIFF 2017 film #3
Reason for pick ….. Aki!
Anticipating watching a new Aki Kaurismaki is like anticipating a dinner with a friend you love, but only see every few years. You know they’ll basically be the same, and you’ll rehash all those familiar stories that bond you, and await the glib and sardonic observations on events that have transpired since you last supp’d.
Something is different this time, though. While the conversation runs much of the usual course, and there are all the familiar hallmarks of dry sardonic mixed with absurdism and rock-and-roll, this dinner is different; it’s more urgent. While Aki’s previous work, Le Havre, dealt with immigration, this film, in the light…
The Other Side of Hope is a stylishly retro, captivating refugee story. Focused on a Syrian man's excruciating experiences of surviving in Finland, while searching for his missing sister, it's highly naturalistic with its storytelling, coupled with the inherent iciness of Scandinavian cinema.
With a throwback cinematography, The Other Side of Hope managed to squeeze the maximum entertainment values out of an otherwise minimal, uneventful story. We follow the protagonist, Khaled, played by a mesmerizing Sherwan Haji, as he experiences the heartless bureaucracy of the Finnish asylum system, and subsequently the generous assistances from a quirky, equally down and out local restaurant owner.
Despite its drastic tonal shifts, from initial impassiveness, to subtle absurdist comedy, and to its oddly melodramatic…
Action!: The Deadpan World of Aki Kaurismäki
And so we have come to the conclusion of our Aki Kaurismaki's. The fact that none of the director's movies have finished below three stars, even with some of his lows, shows just how great a director he is. Each project feels and looks extremely special because of his idiosyncratic style. Sadly, this film is not only the culmination of the director's marathon, but according to Aki himself, it is also his last film as a director.
As for the film itself, as I pointed out in the past, it has seemed as though I have watched the same film from the director, but in a different setting; this one however does feel…
After coming to Finland, Syrian refugee Khaled (Sherwan Haji) befriends local restauranteur Waldemar (Sakari Kuosmanen), who tries to help him reunite with his missing sister, in Aki Kaurismäki’s comedy-drama.
Kaurismäki takes things at a far mellower tempo compared to the similarly themed Le Havre, genuinely trying to capture its immigrant character’s point of view by putting him in the centre, which in the process avoids making Khaled the plot device that Idrissa in the previous film was often used as.
The director has an enormous amount of empathy for his struggle, filling each scene with an optimistic yet clear-eyed humanism that celebrates the power of community, leading to some touching moments as Khaled tries to readjust to this new world…
50/100
Structurally misguided, to put it mildly. Imagine The Immigrant if Ewa and Bruno don't meet until the film's second half, following an hour that juxtaposes her arrival in the U.S. with his completely separate efforts to finance and open the theater/brothel. In the absence of any thematic parallels between the two stories (and there really aren't any here), there's nothing to do but (im)patiently wait to see how they'll inevitably intersect. When they finally do, it's hard not to think back on e.g. the big poker game* and wonder why the hell this movie wasted our time with it. Who cares how the restaurant gets purchased?! (Especially if it's gonna be thanks to sheer luck.) Charitably, one could view…
[7]
In considering The Other Side of Hope, one thing has to be said: the world changes, but fundamentally Aki Kaurismäki doesn't change. That's not to say that his films are somehow insensitive to the times or insulated inside their own aesthetic bubble. Far from it. Rather, we could think of Kaurismäki's film style as something that simply exists, like iron or xenon. Then his films serve as experimental models in which "Kaurismäkianism" itself is the control group. How does it respond to the problem of poverty, or Shakespeare, or the silent cinema? What does the form do when pressed into the service of an urban landscape study, or brought to bear on the question of immigration? And so on.…
Am I enjoying my meal before I even get a chance to take my first bite? Yes, yes I am, waiter!
I would pay good money to see Kaurismäki punch Michael Haneke in the face.
“I pretend. The melancholy ones are the first they send back”
I had never seen an Aki Kaurismaki movie before but if this is representative of the rest of his work then I have some serious catching up to do. For being so inexpressive for much of the movie and relatively simple you wouldn’t expect it to be quite so touching. Not without some great deadpan humor as well.
While there aren’t any spectacular visuals I thought the lighting/colors and simple camera movements made for a really beautiful movie to look at. And it’s all underlined by an amazing message.
Filled with great music
Sherwan Haji was awesome
Hell of a time for a straight flush
My first ever Aki Kaurismäki just so happens to be his last (or so he has claimed) but I’ve found myself immediately won over by his style. This tells a very poignant but wryly humorous tale about a Syrian refugee named Khaled, who arrives in Helsinki and goes about trying to track down the whereabouts of his missing sister, Miriam, who he lost whilst fleeing their country’s ongoing civil war. While in the city, Khaled looks for work and applies for asylum, but is turned aside at every stage. The only individuals that show him due care are a fellow refugee, an Iraqi named Mazdak, and a recently separated travelling shirt salesman, named Waldemar, who offers Khaled a place to…
Politically aware and dry as a Nun's wotnot, Aki Kaurismäki's Toivon tuolla puolen uses a wonderful blend of styles to portray the collision of these two characters as their lives meander their way into a common space.
Khaled and Wilkstrὃm come from very different worlds. One, as a refugee from war torn Syria, and one from a war torn marriage and life as a fashion retailer. Interspersed by some catchy rock and roll street music, the film tracks our two lead characters as they experience many of Finland's idiosyncrasies as their lives hurtle towards each other.
Something about the film had me thinking of Roy Andersson. Maybe it's the Scandinavian sense of humour or the static camera with pastel colouring,…