Kauas pilvet karkaavat
Tags: comedy

Plot synopsis:
Ilona Koponen (Kati Outinen), a head waitress at Dubrovnik restaurant, is married to Lauri (Kari Väänänen), a tram driver. The couple live in a small, modestly furnished apartment in Helsinki. As they both come home from work late one night, Lauri surprises Ilona with a new television which he purchased on store credit. There is a short discussion between the two regarding their ability to meet their financial obligations but they agree that the TV payments are manageable.
Next day, as Lauri gets to work, he learns that the company will be laying off several workers due to non-profitability of certain tram routes and he is randomly chosen as one of the workers to be laid off. The day after Lauri has finished working his last scheduled shift Ilona is informed by the owner of Dubrovnik that the restaurant is being sold to a chain restaurant company and all the employees will be let go since the new company will be bringing in its own employees.
Both of them set out looking for work immediately but with discouraging results. Lauri gets offered a job as a bus driver but is unable to pass the medical exam and subsequently loses his professional driver's licence. Ilona gets a job at a rundown bar/restaurant which doesn't even have a name and is owned by a tax evading crook. After 6 weeks of working there, the restaurant gets shut down by the state and Ilona does not get paid by the dishonest owner.
During their search for meaningful employment, both Lauri and Ilona enter bouts of heavy-drinking, all the while running into their former co-workers who are dealing with similar difficulties. At one point, the two even sell their car and take the money to a casino in hopes of doubling the money but they, however, end up losing it all. Most of their furniture as well as the new TV that Lauri bought is repossessed by the creditors.
One day, Ilona accidentally runs into Mrs Sjöholm (Elina Salo), her former boss. Sjöholm suggests that Ilona should open up a restaurant. Since Ilona does not have the financial means needed for such a venture, Sjöholm agrees to provide the capital for the restaurant to start operating with the understanding that Ilona will pay back the loan to Mrs Sjöholm. Ilona, humbled by her recent experiences, is initially reluctant to accept the offer for fear of the restaurant failing and her not being able to repay Mrs Sjöholm. She eventually does agree.
Ilona names the restaurant Work and hires some of the staff from Dubrovnik, including the troubled chef Lajunen (Markku Peltola), plus Lauri. Filled with anxiety during a slow lunch hour on opening day, Ilona's worries quickly disappear as she watches the restaurant fill to capacity later the same afternoon. After receiving a call from a Helsinki union asking for a reservation for 30 people, Lauri and Ilona exit the restaurant and stand on the front steps appearing emotionless and looking at the skies as more people enter the restaurant.

Review: I never used to like Kaurismäki films, mainly because I didn't understand them and thought they were boring.
The thing with Kaurismäki films is that you can watch them without understanding them and still like them or you can understand them and not like them etc.
There are people like Lauri and Ilona.
Lauri as played by Kari Väänänen is a very typical Finnish male in a way he behaves.
You don't need a million 'I love You's to get the message through, just take a look at his body-language.In the beginning of the film, Lauri has just bought a new TV (with colours) on part payment.
Getting job is difficult, Ilona is being told that she starts to be a bit too old being a waiter,she's 38 (wonderful scene with Esko Nikkari) and Lauri has medical problems.
which reminds me of another Kaurismäki film, Calamari Union where one of the characters called Frank as played by Kari Väänänen says something like I don't drive buses, I am me..
The characters in the film don't talk very much, and at first it really bothered me that they didn't sound natural at all, but I actually know people who speak less than that and it's completely natural!
Great songs throughout the film which really echo the feelings of the characters (too bad the songs have not been subtitled - they could have since in some scenes the characters speaks so little!)I think this is a fantastic film.
The film is dedicated to Matti Pellonpää (little boy in one photo) who was supposed to have starred in the film, but sadly he died before they started to film this...well, he wasn't the first Finnish person to drink himself to death..watch it on DVD!.
Don't look for the obvious here, it's hidden under a layer of Finnish humor so opaque that you have to watch very closely to see even a glimmer of laughter in anyone's eye.The film is gloomy, depressing, bleak, but somehow it does your heart good.
Even when things seem to be at their worst, you can't help but feel that the hardworking and honest couple will manage to somehow get back on solid ground and right with the world.
They simply must, or your poor little heart will break.It's hard to describe this film because nothing much seems to happen, there are only the normal setbacks of life in the low income zone, but by the end you realize that you've seen a great movie and are happy with it.
To truly understand and appreciate Kauas pilvet karkaavat (Drifting Clouds)you need to understand something of the Finnish mindset, and to understand something of the Finns I would recommend this film.
I have lived 10 months of my life in Finland, and I was therefore able to identify immediately with this film through my experiences of Finland and the Finns themselves (my dear friends there).
This film captures the sense of space that Finland itself has, the sense of space that the Finns create around themselves (Finns appear to me to be somewhat unseasy with urban and city living, hence everyone's desire to escape to a kesamokki, summer cottages at the earliest possible time) and the understated, no-BS nature of the Finns themselves, it is the only country I know where it is truly possible to have confortable silences when conversing with people.Silent despair, brought on by the extremes of the climate, Finland's relative isolation, the social problems that DO exist there (despite being a Scandinavian country with all the images of a freedom and social support that that may conjure), the expectation of conformity that exists within such small societies, and yet the strong innate desire of every Finn to truly assert an individual identity over within the framework of this 'organised freedom' are all apparent in this film and are how I observed Finland.
To any Finns out there, this is not meant to cause offense, my apologies if these comments do.Kaurismaki's use of long shots and one takes for a sequence of action (or non-action), and the sense of time and anticipation that they create, until you realise that the anticiption amounts to nothing, which is so in line with the Finnish sense of humour.
But as a small country (in terms of population) with a closely homogenous people, these traits are quite discernable, especially with the impact that the environment and climate brings...Drifting Clouds and the Leningrad Cowboys are two sides of the same coin...I make this disclaimer, the film is actually gloomier than life there..
Aside from Leningrad Cowboys Meet Moses, Aki Kaurismäki has never done any real sequels to his films (even though Shadows in Paradise featured one of the minor characters from Crime and Punishment).
Sadly, Matti Pellonpää, who was eager to reprise his role as Nikander, died shortly before filming began, thus abruptly ending a working relationship with the director which had lasted 11 years and 8 movies (The Match Factory Girl and I Hired a Contract Killer were the only ones in which he did not appear prior to his death), prompting Kaurismäki to change the screenplay.Nonetheless, there are still traces of the original project in the finished film, namely the characters played by Kati Outinen (who became the new protagonist of the story) and Sakari Kuosmanen, who retain the names they had in Shadows: Ilona and Melartin.
There are no major problems in the workplace, the only occasional disturbance being the alcohol-induced antics of the cook Lajunen (Markku Peltola, who later played the lead in the trilogy's second act, The Man Without a Past).
Everyone faces unemployment their own way: Lajunen buries himself in booze ("Where are you going?" he gets asked one evening; "As far as the Kossu lasts" he replies, referring to Finland's most popular drink) and Melartin starts looking for another job, while Ilona is confident her husband's income will be enough for the two to lead a decent life.
Unfortunately, Lauri (Kari Väänänen) loses his job as well, causing despair and frustration as his wife tries to come up with a solution that could satisfy everybody.As usual, Kaurismäki depicts contemporary Finnish society with a very pessimistic eye, never once flinching away from the sadness of the situation.
The high point of this is reached in Esko Nikkari's cameo, a scene drenched in cynicism and cruelly black humor where the great character actor tells Outinen (always at her best in these pictures) that once you're past the age of 30, you're completely worthless in the business world.
It's a dramatic sequence which reflects what really goes on in the world every day, albeit filtered through Kaurismäki's peculiar view on life.And yet, for all the misery that permeates the picture, Drifting Clouds is actually the most optimistic of the "losers" films: perhaps remembering what the movie was originally meant to be, the director fills almost every frame (minus the Nikkari scene) with gags, in order to lighten the mood.
And the conclusion stands out as one of the most cheerful Kaurismäki has ever shot, maybe because that is the kind of ending in which Pellonpää, to whom the film is dedicated, would have given another of his understated, hugely affecting, unforgettable performances..
I saw Drifting Clouds at a film festival, and I was truly blown away by the intense and true-to-life emotions this movie portrayed.
This colorful film from Finland's great director Aki Kaurismäki is a warm and passionate (note that passionate isn't the same in Finland as in Spain)story of two working class heroes, Illona and Lauri, with their dog and square life.
The setbacks which haunts the maincharacters are so cruel that only real life can do something like this to people.
Kari Väänänen as her husband is the perfect Finnish hard working man whose life isn't a struggle but an art-form it self.
Finnish melancholic tango in this environment makes almost a conflict between the things happening in the screen and the music.
The story is very clear and therefore not boring - a quality not applicable for every Kaurismäki film.
Yet Ilona and Lauri's fate is surely not a classic example for what happens to Finn worker couples today, I think the bizarre surroundings underline the whole film's quirky and slightly absurd mood.This is the best Kaurismäki film I've seen up to now..
Nor is this a neo-realistic movie made then by Visconti, Lattuada or De Sica though it sometimes looks like one.
Man and wife of a modest couple lose their jobs simultaneously and have to endure a lot of hardship trying to get employment again.
There's a somewhat magical, perversely paradoxical thing that might take hold of a watcher of Kaurismäki films: Which is that one might find oneself so intrinsically entangled in the lives of characters, their trials and tribulations, that it doesn't seem that important anymore whether the story on screen ends with, say, a happily ever after or a joint suicide.
This is true of a couple of equally absorbing social dramas from Kaurismäki comparable to "Drifting Clouds", ranging from "Shadows in Paradise" over "Ariel" to "The Match Factory Girl".
As for "Drifting Clouds": Despite the downward spiral Kaurismäki's ordinary people find themselves trapped in, survival seems to be dependent on primarily one thing: to rely on one another, to give support, faults aside, to pick oneself up, to fight against the odds, to succeed or succumb - together.That's what Kaurismäki losers do: struggle with determination.
Very Finnish, tailored to Finnish lives, and yet it feels universal, because through this lens we become witnesses of something larger.You might look at clouds as they drift away - castles in the sky, pipe dreams they say.
Kaurismäki's film "Kauas pilvet karkaavat" is a slight parody, of course, but it contains a little Finland in it.
Feelings are irrelevant, we Finns are more like Borg than "civilized" people, who can discuss about weather in every possible situation.
I think everyone who comes to Finland, should see this film.
Be merry while you can."I hope that every sad loser in life and every person who is kind but is faced with tremendous misfortune has a happy ending.This film is dedicated to Aki Kaurismäki's most prominent collaborator and friend, Matti Pellonpää, who was supposed to reprise his role in Shadows in Paradise in this film, which was meant to be the sequel.He died of a heart attack and was only 44.
Maybe, after all, Aki Kaurismäki's cinematic lens pale in comparison to real life's tragedy..
Also we are supposed to watch Finnish movies because that's what we are going to be making in the future, and sometimes we forget or ignore our own movies.I have never watched Aki Kaurismäki's films before, but I was already aware of his style.
It's a style, and it works, but it's not extremely realistic, since it sounds like how Finnish people talk in the morning when they're not fully awake yet, or how they talk to strangers.
Even though it can be painful to watch, it's very stylish and suits a film like this.
And also the only reason why it can be seen as painful is because we're so used to the English way of dialogue and acting in movies.Another almost painful thing is the cinematography.
But all in all Kaurismäki captures everyday life during recession well, and even if the acting can barely be called that, the story isn't emotionless.
The Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has made several films about the "little people" in society, hardworking folk who have a spot of bad luck and risk being overlooked by the state bureaucracy and business development schemes that are ostensibly there to help them.
Ilona (Kati Outinen) and Lauri (Kari Väänänen) are a happy married couple.
We see Lauri and Ilona turned down from one job after another, facing repo men and shady characters taking advantage of their desperation for work, yet in many respects the film is a comedy.
Kaurismäki's humour is extremely deadpan, at some points perhaps too subtle for audiences outside Finland, but it's still generally fun and there are some laugh-out-loud moments.The film has a strong magical realist feel.
But also Ilona and Lauri's insistence on making it on their own, without accepting unemployment money from the state, is plausible but somehow not the expected course of events in 1990s Finland.
Kaurismäki was to emphasize distrust of the welfare state in his later film MIES VAILLA MENESYYTTA (Man Without a Past), but there he was too heavy-handed in his criticism, while here there's more a tone of quiet nobility than bitterness.While the happy ending is too much of a deus ex machina, I greatly enjoyed KAUAS PILVET KARKAAVAT.
What really drives the film is the quirky face of Kati Outinen, who in spite of all her defeats rolls with the punches and whose eyes maintain boundless optimism, like an adorable stray puppy.
Aki Kaurismäki is the most famous Finnish director out there today, he is also a filmmakers with the most international production in the history of Finland.
When he made Kauas pilvet karkaavat (Drifting Clouds) he wanted to find the optimism without forgetting the reality; to make neo-realism in color.
"When I started working on Drifting Clouds I located Frank Capra's emotional story of salvation, It's a Wonderful Life on one fringe, Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves on other and the Finnish reality somewhere in between." One who watches the films by Kaurismäki will see his love towards real cinema.
Even in the scene where the main characters go to Bio Rex (an old movie theater in Helsinki) there are posters from masterpieces such as Jean Vigo's L'Atalante and Robert Bresson's L'Argent.
In Drifting Clouds Kaurismäki wanted to continue his stories about "losers with high morality.": Ilona and Lauri are two lovers living in Helsinki.
The film portrays the recession in Finland in early 1990's: it was a desperate time in Finland, unemployment and inflation was up to the roof but it also portrays the "old" Finland, Finland before it joined the European Union.The story of Drifting Clouds might sound conventional or a bit pretentious to some and that's what it could easily have been, if it wasn't directed by Aki Kaurismäki.
The reason why the film doesn't feel pretentious and conventional is the honesty and sincerity of Kaurismäki, but also the severe Bressonian aesthetics.
The aesthetics in all of his film is Bressonian: minimalist, geographically perfect - not a single useless image; there's nothing insignificant in 'mise-en-scene'.Drifting Clouds tries to find optimism in recession.
The similarities don't just stop at the storyline: there is something similar in the narrative as well, and even that Kaurismäki isn't often considered as a cinematic poet, I think his naturalistic realism has something poetic in it at times.Aki Kaurismäki's films are satires, tragicomedies and many may find them dull and weird.
But in the end I think his films appeal to most of the people: they aren't really challenging or mysterious.
Drifting Clouds is a smart satire about dreams passing by and the optimism which is everywhere - it just needs to be found..
Yet 'Drifting Clouds', which offers a Finnish version of the same old themes (poverty, unemployment, mindless sex, optimism in the face of repeated failure), makes me realise how truly boring an evening in a dark room in front of a flickering screen can be.
A good Finnish film..
Kauas Pilvet Karkaavat (Drifting Clouds) is a moving film about two unemployed folks in Finland.
Finnish films aren't very good, though.There isn't enough real emotions in the movie.
I just don't like the Finnish style of movie-making.
Kaurismaki's best film.
Aki Kaurismaki is undoubtedly a talented filmmaker, but sometimes his films are done in with his mannerisms and his particular obsessions (Finnish tango, classic rock, smoking, old automobiles, working class culture, cinephilia of the 60s variety).
In Drifting Clouds, though, he made as perfect a film as he could possibly have.
The story is about a working class couple, Lauri and Ilona (Kari Vaananen and Kaurismaki regular Kati Outinen, who is wonderful here).
They seem a happy, if impassive couple, though they barely made ends meet with their jobs.
The situations they went through are often comical, and some people might be bothered with making fun of the very real drama of unemployment (when I saw this film in a movie theater, some people reacted tensely at much of the humor and gags).
But I think Kaurismaki's is clearly not poking fun at the two main characters (who are both very noble people) but at the absurdity of the economic system.
There's a happy ending that seems slightly incongruent with what we've seen before, but this is overall a wonderful film.
The film is dedicated to Matti Pellonpaa, a regular of the first films of Aki Kaurismaki, who died during preproduction of this movie.
This was probably the turning point movie for me in dwelling into Nordic films - and what a start.I had to see it again.
Also Bent Hammer's films, and the likes of Green Butchers, the Bothersome Man...
But somehow they speak much about loneliness, in a surreal realistic way.Later on Aki came out with the 2nd and 3rd installments too in which there's another unforgettable funny scene in the Man Without a Past that is just as indelible.This is not a real review but a more a look back to the stick in the sand marker on my starting point toward Nordic Cinema..
it's entertaining and definitely worth watching.However, it is like all Aki's movies.
The newest movie by aki is worse than all the rest...Yes rent it and see if you haven't seen other Kaurismäki movies.
also the cinematography is definitely NOT great.People are like people who live in the country side in Finland.
that the life of this couple may be poor, but definitely not as complicated as could be.Still this is the best of Finnish cinema, which is otherwise not even mentionable.