Le Havre (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Le Havre |
| Country of production | Finland , France , Germany |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2011 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 0 JMK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Aki Kaurismäki |
| script | Aki Kaurismäki |
| production | Sputnik, Pyramid Productions, Pandora Film |
| camera | Timo Salminen |
| cut | Timo Linnasalo |
| occupation | |
| |
Le Havre is a feature film by Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki from 2011. The tragic comedy is set in the eponymous French port city . The focus is on a shoe shiner (portrayed by André Wilms ), a former writer who takes care of a refugee child from Africa. The film premiered in competition at the 64th Cannes Film Festival on May 17, 2011. The German theatrical release was on September 8, 2011, the day after in Finland.
action
Marcel Marx, a writer and would-be artist, whose success was probably “more artistic”, moved from Paris to the port city of Le Havre . He has given up his dream of being a writer. He makes a living poorly than right as a shoeshine boy near the train station. With this frugal life he believes he can better serve society. He lives in a small house, where his loving wife Arletty and the dog Laïka are at his side.
Marcel regularly visits his local pub in Le Havre. One day during his lunch break he runs into Idrissa, who is hiding under the pier in the water. The boy from Gabon entered France illegally in a container and fled from the authorities. Marcel takes him to his home.
Meanwhile, Arletty is diagnosed with cancer. She keeps her knowledge of the incurable disease a secret from her husband and asks the doctors to do the same, as her husband has never grown up despite his advanced age and lets his wife take care of his everyday life. Against much resistance, Marcel helps Idrissa to get to London , where his mother awaits him. He is supported by a community of solidarity, including the greengrocer who is actually not very sympathetic to him, the baker Yvette, the shoe shine colleague Chang, who is now legally residing in the city, and the singer Roberto Piazza ("Little Bob"). A fisherman agrees to take Idrissa on board and hand him over to a colleague who charges 3,000 euros for the trip. Marcel is able to convince Bob to hold a charity concert for his protégé in order to be able to pay the smugglers. To do this, he must first reconcile Roberto with his partner. Keeping Idrissa's presence secret becomes increasingly difficult as a neighbor has reported to the police. But even the superintendent Monet, who is looking for the boy, finally stands up for the boy. He informs Marcel about a planned raid, and when his colleagues want to search the boat that Idrissa is supposed to use to leave town, he blocks the hatch under which the boy is hiding.
Marcel's bedridden wife is miraculously recovering from her serious illness in the hospital.
Soundtracks
| No. | title | Interpreter |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Apotheosis | Einojuhani Rautavaara |
| 2. | Matelot | The Renegades |
| 3. | Musettina | Erkki Friman |
| 4th | bolero | Antero Jakoila |
| 5. | Pour un seul amour | Damia |
| 6th | Chansons Gitanes | Damia |
| 7th | Jambaar | Hate Walli & Asamaan |
| 8th. | La nostalgique | Alain Chapelain |
| 9. | Chanson du pavé | Alain Chapelain |
| 10. | Petite prélude et fugue en mi mineur ( BWV 555 , Johann Sebastian Bach ) |
Damien Calais |
| 11. | Statesboro blues | Blind Willie McTell |
| 12. | Sheila 'n' Willy | Little Bob |
| 13. | Maailmanpyörä | Aaro Kurkela |
| 14th | Cuesta Abajo | Carlos Gardel |
| 15th | Libero | Little Bob |
History of origin
With Le Havre , Kaurismäki found his way back to French-language film after Das Leben der Bohème (1992). In the latter, the French actor André Wilms embodied the character of Marcel Marx, who was named after the French film director Marcel Carné and the German philosopher and economist Karl Marx . The French actress Arletty was the inspiration for the name of the wife of the main character in Le Havre (also Wilms) .
Kaurismäki supposedly had the idea of addressing the issue of illegal refugees in the European Union a few years ago. However, he did not know where to shoot the story, which could have taken place in almost any European country. To prepare for the film, he traveled along the European coast, from Genoa via southern France, Spain , Portugal and the Bay of Biscay to the Netherlands , and so he finally discovered Le Havre, "the city of blues and soul and rock'n roll", so Kaurismäki, as the setting for his film. In preparation for this, he studied the works of Marcel Carné. But he couldn't take on much from the films, otherwise Le Havre would have slipped into serious melodrama. In addition to Wilms and his Finnish compatriot Kati Outinen , he chose the French Jean-Pierre Darroussin and the local singer Roberto Piazza alias “Little Bob” as the actor . The shooting was scheduled from March 23 to May 12, 2010 in Le Havre. Of the estimated cost of 3.85 million euros, 750,000 euros came from the Finnish Film Foundation, Suomen elokuvasäätiö . It was the largest grant for a Finnish film in 2010.
As in his previous works, Kaurismäki chose blue and gray as the basic color of his film, adding yellow and red spots of color. With the red color, he was inspired by the films Yasujirō Ozus . According to his own admission, the director is getting “old”, which is why he no longer devotes himself to absurd films, but rather takes up certain topics such as unemployment , which he then processes in the form of a fairy tale. According to Kaurismäki himself, he is a pessimist and too sensitive to direct sad films. With its two happy endings, Le Havre is not a realistic film.
Reviews
In the French press
The French critics saw Kaurismäki's film in the extended circle of favorites for the Palme d'Or , the main prize at the Cannes Film Festival. According to Thomas Sotinel ( Le Monde ) , Kaurismäki tells the same story as Philippe Lioret in Welcome (2009), he also adds television images of the violent destruction of the "Jungle of Calais ", a camp of refugees on the English Channel , by the French police on September 22nd 2009 at. But this reality makes the Finn into a “nostalgic and enchanted world”, which is due to the architecture of the port city, the old automobiles (including the Renault 16 used by Commissioner Monet ) and the panorama-like and methodical individual images. The border police are direct descendants of the Keystone Cops , while the plot of Arletty's illness is reminiscent of the Hollywood melodramas of the 1920s. Philippe Azoury ( Liberation ) also found that Le Havre was a "fairy tale". He drew comparisons to works by Robert Guédiguian , Charles Chaplin , Yasujirō Ozu, Jacques Tati and Jim Jarmusch . The colors gave the city a sense of unrest, while lead actor André Wilms repeats all those things that are known from Chaplin. Visually, Le Havre is one of Kaurismäki's best films, but it offers little background and is too artificial. "The question of reality (a real place, a tricky political topic) doesn't work like the rabbit out of the hat of the magician who is only interested in his tricks," says Azoury.
In the German-language press
To world reviewer Matthias Heine, the director seems more and more optimistic as he gets older: “With him, poverty doesn't make you ugly and mean, as it does with Brecht , but rather good and beautiful - at least internally beautiful”. The Frankfurter Rundschau spoke of a “solidarity community that practices humanity directly and selflessly” . The executive state organs are referred to as "rough enforcement officers", "heartlessly acting bailiffs of state power" or as "superior power [...] whose most striking characteristic is a lack of humanity".
In many cases, the reviews revolved around the discrepancy between reality and the stylized Kaurismäki universe. Wilfried Hippen ( taz ) also discovered something new in this work by the Finn: “Reality breaks into his carefully stylized art world.” The refugees are not typical Kaurismäki figures, but “people set in a naturalistic way”. Martin Wolf called them in the mirror “messengers from reality” who penetrate the world of “melancholics with a penchant for gentle sarcasm and hard drinks”. The two worlds fit together because actually all Kaurismäki characters have always been on the run, from their own life, from the dreariness or the Finnish winter. Although all of his films are fairy tales, Christoph Egger noted in the NZZ , this one is no longer grimly realistic, but rather an Elysian with good people. “Only in a consistently unreal ambience” is a world possible in which “there is humanity, decency, solidarity”, said Christiane Peitz from Tagesspiegel . Le Havre conjures up a haven of brotherhood. "If that is too simple for you, you fail to recognize the desperation that lies behind the realization that this story of the rescue of an African refugee cannot be from this world."
Awards
Le Havre was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival . At the Munich Film Festival , he received the ARRI Prize for best foreign film in 2011 . In 2011 it also won the Golden Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and the prestigious French Louis Delluc Prize for best feature film .
At the European Film Awards ceremony that year , Le Havre received four nominations (Best European Film, Best Director, Best Actor - André Wilms, Best Screenplay). The film was also Finland's nominee for an Oscar for best foreign language film in 2012, but was not shortlisted. At the 2012 César Awards , nominations in the categories of Best Film, Best Director and Best Production Design followed. In the same year, Le Havre won six prizes at the Finnish Jussi Film Awards, including those for best film and best director.
Web links
- Profile and press kit at festival-cannes.com (English)
- Le Havre in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official German website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Le Havre . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2011 (PDF; test number: 128 843 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Le Havre . Youth Media Commission .
- ↑ Release dates in the Internet Movie Database (English; accessed on May 22, 2011)
- ↑ Anke Westphal: To talk a lot, to laugh a lot . In: Berliner Zeitung , May 18, 2011, p. 27
- ↑ a b Interview with Christina Masson in the official Cannes press kit (PDF file; 3.94 MB), pp. 9–10 (English; accessed on May 22, 2011)
- ↑ Synopsis des prochains tournages dans la cit at paris-normandie.fr, February 17, 2010 (accessed on May 22, 2011)
- ↑ Nyhetsarkivet: Kaurismäki for 750,000 euros till sin nya film at svenska.yle.fi, February 16, 2010 (Swedish; accessed May 22, 2011)
- ↑ Documentation ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. about Le Havre on arte.tv, May 18, 2011, 2:35 min. (accessed on May 22, 2011)
- ↑ Documentation ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. about Le Havre on arte.tv, May 18, 2011, 4:05 min ff. (accessed on May 22, 2011)
- ↑ cf. Overview of the French trade press at lefilmfrancais.com (French; accessed on May 22, 2011)
- ^ Thomas Sotinel: Le Havre: Le marxisme selon Kaurismäki . In: Le Monde, May 19, 2011, p. 26
- ↑ Philippe Azoury: "Le Havre", you palette Festival . In: Liberation, May 18, 2011, No. 9334, p. 2
- ^ Matthias Heine: Karl Valentin as an angel of death . In: Die Welt, September 8, 2011, p. 21
- ↑ a b Anke Westphal: The power of the little people . In: Frankfurter Rundschau, September 6, 2011, p. 34
- ↑ a b Martin Wolf: Miracles Happen . In: Der Spiegel, September 5, 2011, p. 143
- ↑ a b Wilfried Hippen: The help of the Boheme . In: the daily newspaper, September 8, 2011, p. 25
- ↑ Christoph Egger: The good people of Le Havre . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, September 29, 2011, p. 51
- ↑ Christiane Peitz: The miracle next door . In: Der Tagesspiegel, September 8, 2011, p. 28
- ↑ John Hopewell: 'Le Havre' win top Fipresci crits' award ( Memento of the original from May 23, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at variety.com, May 21, 2011 (accessed May 22, 2011)
- ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from July 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
