Ariel (1988)

Ariel: Directed by Aki Kaurismäki. With Turo Pajala, Susanna Haavisto, Matti Pellonpää, Eetu Hilkamo. A Finnish man goes to the city to find a job after the mine where he worked is closed and his father commits suicide.

“This 1988 feature from Finlandu0026#39;s answer to Jim Jarmusch is a deadpan shaggy dog comedy charting the downfall and redemption of an unemployed mine worker, over several tentative episodes constructed not unlike a series of false starts. It begins, initially, as something like a road film; begins again as a romance; then begins yet again as an underworld crime drama, before finally ending in what could be just another prologue (which would make the entire film one large, elaborate tease). Kaurismakiu0026#39;s wayward hero is, like the scenario itself, pleasantly reticent; thereu0026#39;s something undeniably disarming about the way he simply drifts from one predicament to another, even if the total effect makes each scene difficult to recall in detail afterward. It may not amount to much, but after a summer full of over-hyped, mega-budget, wannabe blockbusters Kaurismakiu0026#39;s economical humor is hard to resist.”