The Films of Aki Kaurismäki by Thomas Austin

Author:Thomas Austin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA

Figure 6.2 Ilona (Kati Outinen) and Nikander (Matti Pellonpää) in Shadows in Paradise (1986). © and courtesy Sputnik Ltd.

For these working-class heroes, the ethics of commitment is often expanded to include commitment to one’s job. There is a work ethic displayed by Kaurismäki’s heroes involving what Richard Sennett calls ‘craftsmanship’, the desire to do the work right and for its own sake (2009).22 Lauri, for instance, fixes his tie and coat when driving the bus in a display of working-class pride, and Ilona is always well dressed and elegant when working as a hostess. They both seem to take pride in their clothing not because it raises their social status but out of respect for the others, as part of their general dignified attitude to the world. The dignity and pride for one’s job happen even in the most seemingly uninspiring occupations. In The Man Without a Past (2002), the man feels proud when he eventually realizes that he was a welder in past life, while in Shadows in Paradise (1986), Nikonen takes pride in telling that he is a garbage collector and an ex-butcher. In certain cases, there is often a self-realization of one’s occupation as inadequate, especially in male workers (Kaurismäki plays again with the stereotypical gender roles here) who seek upward social mobility. In the regular Kaurismäki’s style, however, this attempt to escape becomes internally subverted; it is almost absurd and appears both as the effect of general social alienation and as a normal working-class desire. Koistinen asserts to the girl he is in love with that ‘it’s just temporary. I’m not going to be a guard forever’. However, the futility of this desire is revealed earlier in the film, when he narrates to the kiosk worker friend his plans to set up his own company and drive the big corporation he works for out of business (in a further display of absurdity, the name of the firm would be ‘Koskinen Security’ because there is ‘no sense using your own name nowadays’). The company, as Koistinen asserts, will have ‘the most modern equipment money can buy’ and his ‘workmates will come along’ if he asks. Koistinen is broke and a rather unpopular figure in the company, so all this narrative transmits a sense of absurdity, the narrative of a dreamer’s (utopian and unrealizable) dream. Similarly, in Shadows in Paradise, the dream for upward mobility appears again as unfulfillable, conventional and largely boring. As with Koistinen, Nikonen’s friend hopes to make his own garbage collection company and drive the one he works for out of business. However, when he is asked about details, he reveals in full seriousness the comically miserable nature of his motivation (‘I am not going to die behind the wheel …Then where? … Behind the desk’). This revelation compels the viewer to see the whole plan in a blatantly comic yet compassionate way as it emanates from a common desire for upward mobility. Here, again, Kaurismäki employs the usual technique of ambivalence. The working-class

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