Kaurismäki and His Predecessors: Finnish Mind and Cinema – (Certificate)

A course on Finnish film making past and present. By examining the themes and narratives in the films of internationally well-known Finnish film director Aki Kaurismäki (director of Crime and Punishment, Shadows in Paradise, The Match-Factory Girl, The Man without a Past, Lights in the Dusk, Le Havre), the course will provide a general focus on Finnish National Cinema. The course reviews the heritage of the Finnish cinematic past, starting from the silent era of cinema, and elaborating various themes and processes, demonstrating how the Finnish mind and soul are reflected in the history of Finnish national culture.

Aki Kaurismäki’s films have undergone continuous scrutiny for over 20 years. Finnish landscape, urban city feelings, time, movements, and nostalgic images are bound together in his films. Kaurismäki’s background lies partly in Finnish cinema, partly in European cinema, and partly also in Hollywood cinema, because of his special relationship with film history. As Kaurismäki’s films clearly suggest, European cinema is aesthetically innovative, humanist, and socially dedicated by nature. In many of his films, images of a city life can come out as essential elements inside the narrative structure.

Through Kaurismäki's modernist approach, the true meaning is not found in the subject of the film, but in the way that cinematic elements and formal structures are themselves used. Kaurismäki avoids conventional narrative structure, preferring to replace it through a unique use of framing, editing, image, sound, and music. In his films, these formal elements come together as a highly stylized but expressive language through which he can communicate his central concerns.