Their furniture is taken away. The car has to be sold. Dire circumstances aside, Drifting Clouds is a film touched by the absurd and the hopeful. Kaurismaki's strange, spare style and use of bright colours adds a surreal edge to the most seemingly simple scene. The actors are deadpan.
Events are curiously slow.
The dialogue is often hilarious. The filmmaker describes his work here as a sort of neo-realism mixed with lots of comical elements. How Ilona and Lauri cope and how their marriage fares under fire stands in for a larger story about Finland itself and the country's ailing economy. Kaurismaki has said he hopes the viewer will come out of this film happier than he or she was going in. Canada's Top Movies 1.