Like Hugh Grant, trudging dolefully through the picturesque street markets of fictionalised West London, so our film year has swiftly swung full circle, and with the final whirring of the projection at The Elgiva, for the fifteenth time, this year’s Chiltern Film Society season comes to a close.
With the Eurovision Song Contest final being broadcast this Saturday, and Sweden being tipped as favourites (readers will most likely know the outcome by the time that this article is published), it seems timely that CFS close its 2024/25 programme with an offering from the Nordic Islands.
Screening on Wednesday, May 21st at The Elgiva, (with a fitting title to mark the end of the season – see, we’re all about details) is Fallen Leaves (2023), a dry comedy drama, set in Helsinki. Supermarket employee Ansa (Alma Poysti) meets construction worker Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) on a night out at a karaoke bar (Lucky Voice indeed – other venues are available…apparently) and the two hit seem to hit the right notes together. A successful date to the cinema (where else? And do they have society membership?) follows and they would have ridden off into the sunset on a city tram, if small things like phone numbers and, you know, names, had been exchanged. The path of true love, once again, is thwarted but not forever blocked, as the protagonists must overcome a series of increasingly far-fetched misadventures, and attend to the welfare of a stray dog, before they can (hopefully – no spoilers here) be reunited.
Fallen Leaves was written and directed by Aki Kaurismaki (pictured below), who is Finland’s best-known director and has been making films since 1983. Fallen Leaves adopts Kaurismaki’s trademark styles of deadpan humour, minimalism and static camera shots, with a hint of political undertones – this time referencing zero hours contracts, the rights of the working classes and the war in Ukraine, mentioned via radio bulletins on the news. Although the premise seems bleak, there is humour and optimism to be found throughout. It marked a comeback for Kaurismaki, who had not made a feature for six years, and delighted fans and film aficionados alike with his return to the screen. Fallen Leaves was a favourite at Cannes, winning the Jury Prize, and was ranked in the top 5 of both Cahiers Du Cinema’s and The Times’ films of the year in 2023.
Plus, it’s only 81 minutes long. And with films like The Brutalist (2024) coming in at three and a half hours, and reinventing the cinema intermission, that’s an achievement in itself.
With Hilarious Results…
The chance encounter at a karaoke bar is just one of the many ways which couples in cinema become acquainted. The contrivance of the ‘meet cute’ (all the money splashing around in Hollywood, and this is the term that they chose) is employed in rom-com narratives so that the two romantic leads can be initially brought together in some quirky way, sparks fly, fireworks ignite and the audience knows that at the end of 90 minutes, they will get together with a sweet payoff, and everyone’s endorphin and dopamine levels will become recharged (hopefully). But before that, there have to be a couple of obstacles…
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Bridget Jones (2001) (Renée Zellweger) and a reindeer jumper clad Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) lock eyes over the annual New Year’s Day turkey curry buffet, before she over-hears him calling her a ‘verbally incontinent spinster’. It takes a year, a recipe for blue soup and ‘a fight, a real fight’ with the charmingly dastardly Hugh Grant before the two finally get together (and then it all goes a bit wrong again in the sequels). Things didn’t fare much better for Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy in the original Pride and Prejudice (film version 2005, BBC version 1995 – fight it out amongst yourselves, but my money’s on the lake swimming scene), where Jane Austen originally observed the pithy battle of the sexes 1813 – it is a truth universally acknowledged, you know…
Serendipity (2001) I am including this as an example of a premise being stretched beyond all suspension of disbelief (disbelief in my case was two-fold: Did John Cusack REALLY make this, AND DID I REALLY PAY MONEY TO WATCH IT). Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack meet and instantly like each other BUT they are both seeing other people. She believes in fate, or Serendipity, if you will (stay with me). To prove this, she writes her name in a book that she then gives away, and he writes his number on a $5 note, which she uses to buy mints. Will they ever cross paths again? And should they give some help to Ansa and Holappa in Fallen Leaves, as they seem to have accidentally undergone the same fate?
And All I Could Say Was Hello…
Stepping away from comedy, into melodrama, comes An Affair to Remember (1957). Cary Grant’s Nickie falls in love with Deborah Kerr’s Terry on a transatlantic cruise, despite both of them being romantically involved with other people. Once docked in New York, the pair agree to meet again at the top of the Empire State Building, in six months’ time. However, on the day in question, Terry is hit by a car when she was crossing the road to get their rendezvous… Nora Ephron successfully paid homage to this classic weepie in her feel good rom-com Sleepless in Seattle (1993), this time with the ultimate pairing of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, where she practically stalks him across America after hearing his voice on a late night radio phone in. It is very sweet though, and the Empire State Building storyline is given a far less tragic outcome.
The couple in Made In Heaven (1987) have an even bigger challenge… Having drowned after rescuing a family from falling into a river, Mike (Timothy Hutton) goes to Heaven, where he meets and falls in love with Annie (Kelly McGillis). Annie, however, is about to be spirited down to earth where she will become a newborn. Mike, who has already had his human life, is set to remain ‘upstairs’. Desperate to see Annie again, Mike cuts a deal with the mysterious, slightly creepy and sad, chain smoking angel Emmet (watch it for yourselves to see who this is), who agrees to let Mike have a further 30 years on earth to find Annie, but they won’t be able to remember each other and they will be at other ends of the country. Made in Heaven is a film that not many people have seen. It’s melancholy, a bit surreal and haunting, very 80s, and will stay with you in a way you don’t expect.
As Edwin Starr asked in his iconic song of 1970, ‘War, huh, what is it good for?’ Well, keeping couples apart and convoluting multimillion pound narrative film arcs, apparently.
Three examples of where young love is just blossoming before conflict and conscription change the course of the relationships forever, are A Very Long Engagement (2004), Cold Mountain (2003) and Atonement (2007). All three of these titles are worthy of the accolades that they won, and have star turns from younger future megastars, but I wouldn’t recommend watching any of them if you’ve had a particularly difficult week…
As always, there are hundreds more titles which could have been added, as cinema audiences love a romance, even if they have to wait two hours for the pay off.
And finally…
I recently had the pleasure of visiting The Light Room in Kings Cross, to see Moonwalkers, a documentary about the Apollo moon landings, narrated by Tom Hanks. It was an enthralling and completely immersive in both vision and sound and comes highly recommended for all ages (we had both young children and pensioners).
As we were looking for somewhere to have lunch, who should appear, going about his day in low key fashion, but Simon Mayo (pictured below), he of the Kermode and Mayo’s Take film podcast, of which I am a member of the church (inside joke…ha ha?). I didn’t fully recognise him at first, as my brain was still stuck in the 90s when he had blonde hair, instead of experimental brown, but I saw him realising that I had recognised him, and it all made sense. Then, unfortunately, I chose to call out ‘Hello to Jason?’ in a somewhat unconfident tone, (Jason Isaacs went to school with Mark Kermode and you have to say this to prove that you listen), to which Simon Mayo raised a hand in recognition, without even turning round, and muttered something incoherent in acknowledgement, which was probably ‘this is the seventeenth person to do this to me this morning, just get a life’. Perhaps he knew I was only listening to the subscription-free part of his show. Moral of this story, don’t forget to play it cool when you meet your celebrity heroes, or you’ll be cringing about it for weeks, before writing about it in a blog.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this season at the CFS, and that Fallen Leaves is a positive note to finish on. Any suggestions for future seasons are always welcome on film nights.
Thanks for watching and have a lovely summer holiday.
Stay safe and see you at the movies.
Sarah
Information about the Chiltern Film Society can be found HERE
