Who’s ready to check out another one of the new featured Letterboxd Lists?! This time around we’re taking a look at the Top 250 Romantic Comedies where I find a movie that felt oddly familiar in Shadows in Paradise (1986).
Title: Shadows in Paradise
Director: Aki Kaurismäki
Released: October 17, 1986 (Finland)
Runtime: 1 hour 14 minutes
Nikander (Matti Pellonpää) works as a garbage collector in Helsinki. He shows up, he does his job, and he goes home. Day in, day out. That’s the routine.
When his coworker and closest companion dies unexpectedly, Nikander finds himself on the receiving end of a small inheritance. It’s not a fortune, but it’s more than he had yesterday. What to do with it? He isn’t quite sure.
Shortly after becoming a slightly richer man, Nikander crosses paths with Ilona (Kati Outinen), a cashier at the local supermarket. She, too, finds herself at a crossroads. Fired from her job and evicted from her apartment in the same day, Ilona is left with very few options and even fewer people to turn to.
The two begin spending time together. Not in any grand or sweeping off one’s feet way. Mostly just dinners and long, quiet evenings. Two people with nowhere better to be, getting used to being in the presence of someone else.
But Ilona has a bit of a restless streak. She wants more than Helsinki has to offer and keeps one eye focused on the door. Nikander, meanwhile, is just beginning to understand what it feels like to want something, let alone someone.
Can two people this guarded, this accustomed to being alone, actually let someone in?
And if Ilona gets her chance to leave, will she take it?
As I mentioned at the start of this review, there was something about Shadows in Paradise that felt oddly familiar. It was almost like I’ve seen it before. Not this film specifically, but something incredibly similar.
When I was looking through director Aki Kaurismäki’s filmography is when things clicked. Shadows in Paradise felt so familiar because I’d reviewed another Kaurismäki film, Fallen Leaves, during my Mubi Monday series.
Much like in Fallen Leaves, there isn’t anything extravagant or extraordinary about Shadows in Paradise. It’s established very early on that Nikander and Ilona are both deeply lonely people. Once that’s established, it isn’t continuously beat into our heads. Instead, we just see, from their perspective, what it looks like to go through life without anyone in your corner. And what it looks like when that quietly begins to change.
Pellonpää is a big reason why it works. Nikander is not a man of many words, but you never feel like you’re missing anything because of it. That loneliness is just right there on his face. Outinen is equally good alongside him. The two of them have a chemistry that sort of sneaks up on you.
This one won’t be for everyone. If you need a lot of momentum to stay engaged, Shadows in Paradise may test your patience a bit. But if you’re a fan of Aki Kaurismäki’s work and haven’t seen this, definitely put it towards the top of your watchlist.
And if you’re completely new to Aki Kaurismäki, this is the place to start.
If you have seen Shadows in Paradise, now it’s your turn.
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