Just so...so bad

Absolutely Fantastic

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Throughout my exploration of brilliant Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki's "Proletariat Trilogy" I have noticed the repetition of several themes and stylistic choices, which include:Dry, deadpan humor.An often melancholic atmosphere.Cinematography that is both colorful and grounded in realityRealistic characters (meaning: characters that are highly flawed, often awkward-the type of people one ignores while taking a daily stroll, played by actors who are not glamorous or ugly).Getting the audience to root for behaviors they otherwise would not be rooting for."The Match Factory Girl", an excellent film that may very well be his masterpiece, embodies all of these little traits, especially the final one. I refuse to spoil the surprises this film keeps in store for its viewers, but I will imply that the heroine definitely engages in some acts that would be villainous in almost any other movie. However, through the lens of Aki Kaurismäki anyone can be likable, and anything can be hilarious. Although it is less predominant that in most of his other works, Aki Kaurismäki's sly sense of dry comedy lurks throughout this tragic drama. There were several instances in which I genuinely (and unexpectedly) burst with juvenile laughter at scenes that would often be considered too sad to be funny. I have compared certain Aki Kaurismäki films to the works of Wes Anderson, but now I must also compare him to the likes of Ingmar Bergman and Todd Solondz. There is no denying that this film is both dark and comic, it is a sad, yet surprisingly entertaining little look at an unfortunate life.

While watching this movie, I want to say that I couldn't stop thinking - wow ! Camera work, music, actors, story line, everything is great. Colors in movie all the time are dark and pale, but at the same time it gives a depressing mood, what plays a big role as music always is quite energetic and even happy. While watching that movie, till the end you have a feeling that the main character thinks about suicide and wants to die, but actually after a lot of thoughts she comes up with the idea that the reason of her unhappiness are the people who surround her all the time. If mother loved her as a daughter, if her mom's husband was working and took care of house, she wouldn't had to spend all money for their needs, but could buy things that would make her happy as a woman. If that man wouldn't act with her like a prostitute but said at the beginning that he didn't want relationship with that girl she wouldn't fell in love with him and so on, so she decides to poison everybody, anyway she know that her life doesn't have any meaning, so she doesn't loose anything (we can see that fact even when she poisons man in the bar who just sat near her).I want to say that movie is strong, there was no actual action but everything is directed so well that you can't stop watching, and you start to feel sorry for main character, and even start understanding her, as it happens to you. I would say that this movie is now one of my favorite ones in minimalist movies.

Iiris is not considered a beautiful girl (although I personally would protest against such a judgment), so whenever she goes to dance, she is the only one left alone by the dancers. She has to pay for her drink at the bar. At home, there is her mother and the mother's boyfriend, sitting around the whole day in cross-training-clothes (a very strange parallel between Finnish and Hungarian people), smoking, drinking vodka, watching television or what is going on outside the window. (Quite a situation which we see so often in Béla Tarr's early movies.) Iiris works in a match factory and supports both her mother and the mother's boyfriend with the money she makes. Moreover, in the evening, she washes and irons the clothes. When one day she buys her a new sexy dress, the mother's man calls her a whore and tells her to bring the cloth back so that he has more to live from it during this month. Already at this point, the most patient watcher would whack out, but Iiris carries her grief with herself alone. However, one evening, she meets a man in her bar, they dance, they drink, they go to his expensive looking apartment. When she awakes in the morning, she finds a money bill on her nightstand. When she knocks at his door a few days later, he refuses to let her in. When she finds out that she got pregnant, a few weeks later, she gets a one-sentence notice by typewriter from him saying: "Get rid of it" - together with a check destined to an abortionist.But thanks to the non-existing god in this world of the Helsinki suburbs, Iiris is not Brecht's "Heilige Johanna Der Schlachthöfe". She enters a pharmacy and buys a good-sized package of rat poison. She chooses a nice little bottle, where she fills the lethal mixture of dissolved rat poison and goes first to the bar. Like an inverted female Jesus Christ at the Last Supper, she pours with an angel-like face a good slug of poison in the innocent-looking man's whiskey glass. And so, she goes on, from station to station, not like Federspiel's "Tiffoid Mary" an essentially unknowing killer-medium, but wholly determined Kaurismäki's "Rat Posion Iiris", a sweet-looking female death on her Danse Macabre.

Yesterday I watched this film straight after Kaurismaki's film of the same year 'I Hired a Contract Killer', and this struck me as a far superior film, possibly because I'd prefer to see drab Finnish locations than (the usual) drab British locations and maybe also because of the annoying poor acting from Jean-Pierre Leaud's female co-star (my Finnish friend asked me why the women sounded like a 'learn the English language' tape). Overall the film seemed to be a generally better piece of cinema than 'Contract Killer'.'The Match Factory Girl' is a continuation of Kaurismaki's trade-mark minimal style (and also content)in which a young (match-factory working) girl leads a depressingly sad life in which she is used and abused by everyone around. Kaurismaki's films (to me at least) can be described as deadpan Bergman in silence, and yesterday i heard that Aki grew up with autism, this is partly the reason of the lack of communication between characters and also the low amount of dialogue. The film is not as depressing as sounds though, and is lifted by Kaurismaki's use of deadpan humour. For any Kaurismaki (add to this Jarmusch and Kitano)fan, this film will not disappoint, although it is pretty difficult to track down.