The girl from the match factory
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The girl from the match factory |
| Original title | Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö |
| Country of production | Finland , Sweden |
| original language | Finnish |
| Publishing year | 1990 |
| length | 68 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Aki Kaurismäki |
| script | Aki Kaurismäki |
| camera | Timo Salminen |
| cut | Aki Kaurismäki |
| occupation | |
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| chronology | |
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← Predecessor |
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The girl from the match factory (original title: Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö ) is a Finnish - Swedish drama by Aki Kaurismäki from 1990. The film was shown in the same year in the forum of the Berlin International Film Festival .
action
The film begins with the peeling of logs, which are then cut into ribbons and then into strips. Lots of machines and a long belt are needed before the matches land in the box. Everything happens automatically, nobody can be seen during the whole process until Iris suddenly appears. Your job is to check the labels on the boxes.
Iris lives with her mother and stepfather. She prepares dinner. They eat in silence while the news is on. Then she goes to a dance hall. While the other women around her are asked to dance, she remains alone. She goes home and makes her bed on the sofa.
The next day she walks through the cemetery, has a beer in a pub, does the family's laundry, does the ironing and - again no one speaks to each other. Mother and stepfather sit in silence in front of the television showing the news program.
Iris got her wages. On the way home, she noticed a dress in a shop window. She buys it. The pay packet is examined by her mother. She notices the missing amount and shows the stepfather the remaining money. He slaps Iris in the face, calling her a whore. The mother demands that she bring the dress back.
Iris goes out of the house with the dress in a box. She changes in a public bath and goes to the disco. There she meets Aarne and spends the night with him in his elegant apartment. The next morning he leaves the house while she is still sleeping. He left money for her on the bedside table. She doesn't notice it or leaves it behind, but writes her phone number on a pad for him.
She borrows the money for the dress from her brother, who works as a cook. She puts it on her mother's table. The following days she waited in vain for a call from Aarne. On her birthday, her mother gives her a book, which she immediately puts on the shelf with the others in the same row.
After watching an old Hollywood movie in the cinema and crying, she rings Aarne's doorbell. He rejects it, but promises to take it out the next day. Mother, stepfather and Aarne sit in silence over coffee and pastries while Iris gets ready. In a posh restaurant, Aarne makes it clear to her that she means nothing to him and should disappear.
When Iris learns that she is pregnant, she writes a desperate letter to Aarne, but it also expresses the hope that everything could be fine. From him she only gets an envelope with a check and a rude request to have an abortion. She walks with a fixed look on the street, then you can hear a screeching car braking.
She lost the child in the accident. At the hospital, she also learns from her stepfather that she has to look for a new place to stay. The mother no longer wants her in the apartment. Iris moves in with her brother after her release.
She buys rat poison in a pharmacy . She returns his check to Aarne and pours the poison into his drink unnoticed. Aarne drinks from this glass after she has already left the apartment. She also puts rat poison in his drink to a man who approaches her in a club. Then Iris goes to the botanical garden. There she looks at the flower of a cactus. It is the queen of the night who only blooms for a few hours at night once a year. Finally she goes to see her mother and stepfather. There she fills the poison into the liquor bottle that is on the table for dinner. After taking another look into the kitchen, where the two of them were having their meal, she leaves the house.
Finally, Iris is arrested and taken away by two police officers while working in the match factory.
background
Film start
The girl from the match factory opened in German cinemas on September 20, 1990 .
Stylistic devices
The film manages with extremely little dialogue. The first words - apart from the news anchor on television - after thirteen minutes from Iris are: "A small beer."
“If you think that there is something lasting between us, then you are mistaken. There is nothing that can touch me less than your affection. It would be best if you disappear now, ”is one of the longest dialogue passages in the film, pronounced by Aarne when he broke up with Iris.
The film dispenses with classic film music. Rather, hits and rock songs are recorded. Often the source of the music can be seen in the picture. In the brother's apartment, Iris starts the number Cadillac of "The Renegades" from the jukebox .
criticism
"Concentrated and formally consequently developed film against the background of a bleakly drawn Finnish reality, which with laconic film language and bitter humor reflects the impossibility of a fulfilled life in the face of the loveless environment."
“Within a good hour, Aki Kaurismäki developed an abysmal, gloomy, bitterly evil modern fairy tale about a protagonist of the working class desperate for loneliness and repression, which in its oppressive intensity is a dense teaching piece about the forlornness of human existence and the art of Visualization of focused filmmaking equally. "
“In this story, Kaurismäki takes the aesthetic of barreness to extremes. The film is all substance, without digressions or pauses. Every picture tells the essentials. Iris, the girl from the match factory, seeks happiness and finds the coldness of people. In the end, she poisons her parents and her seducer to still her pain. That is the plot, very poor and, like the film, infinitely rich. With Kaurismäki, even the hollow kitsch of hit music gets its promise of happiness back, and ugly Helsinki becomes a magical place. "
Awards
- 1990: Interfilm Award, Forum of the Berlin International Film Festival 1990 , for the best film
- 1991: Jussi for best director , best leading actress , best supporting actress and best supporting actor
play
The production of the film by David Bösch at the Schauspielhaus Bochum premiered on June 2, 2013 .
- Cast: Maja Beckmann (Iris), Daniel Stock (Aarne / Simo), Anne Knaak (mother of Iris), Matthias Redlhammer (husband)
- Director: David Bösch
- Stage: Franziska Gebhardt
- Costumes: Anna Maria Schories
- Light: Denny Klein
- Dramaturgy: Sabine Reich
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b The girl from the match factory in the lexicon of international films .
- ↑ kino-zeit.de , accessed on December 6, 2012.
- ↑ Andreas Kilb in: Die Zeit No. 9 of February 23, 1990, accessed on December 6, 2012.
- ↑ Bochum theater . Schedule 2013. Accessed June 9, 2013.
Web links
- The Match Factory Girl in the Internet Movie Database (English)