Shadows in Paradise

Finnish art-house comedy-drama from the director of Leningrad Cowboys Go America. A rubbish collector and a supermarket cashier fall for one another in this first instalment in Aki Kaurismäki's Proletariat Trilogy (which also includes Ariel and The Match Factory Girl).

"The film teams two of the director’s favourite actors for the first time – Matti Pellonpää and Kati Outinen – both of them portraying the isolated, withdrawn characters that would crop up in Kaurismäki’s later films. They’re beset with mundane problems – his best friend dies, she gets fired – but despite it all they’re able to share a kind of shadowy paradise. It’s one of the director’s most atmospheric films." (Sydney Film Festival)

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