Ansa, (Alma Poysti) and Holappa, (Jussi Vatanen), are the "Fallen Leaves" of the title, cast adrift on the winds of fate and finally blown together as people often are. You might say they are two of life's losers; she works in a supermarket but is fired for taking home out-of-date produce while he is an alcoholic manual worker, fired after having an accident at work while drunk. In fact, you could say they are destined to be together.
Often laugh out loud funny, touching and melancholic in almost equal measure "Fallen Leaves" is one of cinema's great love stories and confirms director Aki Kaurismaki as one of the finest and most original directors alive today, a man whose empathy with the characters he has created is totally true and utterly lacking in condescension. I can't think of another director who could have told their story in this way without resorting to digs at the characters just to please his audience. Rather Kaurismaki and his two wonderful actors draw us in gradually until no outcome other than the one he gives us could possibly be the 'right' one. This is his best film in years and is quite simply a small masterpiece.
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