Nothing is important, everything flows linearly, as in life itself. For 64 minutes, two stories are told: that of a Syrian emigrant who, by legal means, tries to receive asylum in Finland, and that of a Finnish shirt salesman, who changes his trade and buys a restaurant. However, the intersection of both stories, when the two protagonists meet, softens the drama of the migrant and turns the restaurateur and his staff into a "salvation army" of sorts, during the remaining 36 minutes. The brilliantly dry, effectively blunt and always funny Aki Kaurismaki from, for example, "Ariel" or "Hamlet Goes Business", becomes the maker of a sweetened plot (with puppy included), in which even the predictable acts of villains avoid bringing the drama to conclusions worthy of the red chronicle or the accusing pamphlet. The last great work I saw of Aki Kaurismaki was "The man without a past". In between, in anticipation of this change in register, there was "Le Havre", a "cute" melodrama that required the services of Philippe Noiret, who died five years earlier. Whatever...
Review of The Other Side of Hope
