14
Oct/11

WEEKEND CLASSICS — AKI KAURISMÄKI: ARIEL

14
Oct/11

Aki Kaurismäki’s ARIEL is part of Weekend Classics series at the IFC Center

ARIEL (Aki Kaurismäki, 1988)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at West Third St.
October 14-16, $13, 11:00 am
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com

Following last weekend’s screenings of the first part of Aki Kaurismäki’s Proletariat Trilogy, 1986’s Shadows in Paradise, the IFC Center will be showing the second part, 1988’s Ariel, Friday through Sunday at 11:00 am. More of a conceptual sequel than a continuing narrative, Ariel stars Turo Pajala as Taisto Kasurinen, a Finnish miner who has just lost his job because the mine has closed. Sitting at a diner with his father/coworker, Taisto barely flinches as the elder Kasurinen tells him that there is nothing for him here, gives him the keys to his white Cadillac convertible, and goes into the bathroom and shoots himself. Taisto, with ever-changing facial hair in the beginning, quickly gets mugged, his meager life savings stolen from him. He seeks day work on the docks and sort of starts dating single mother Irmeli Pihlaja (Susanna Haavisto), who has never met a job she couldn’t quit that day. Taisto soon finds himself in prison for a ridiculous reason — and one he doesn’t really fight, as he generally just sits back and lets things happen to him — and meets fellow inmate Mikkonen (Shadows in Paradise’s Matti Pellonpää), and the two decide it’s time to take action and break out. A very dark, very black comedy that mixes in elements of romance and noir, Ariel is an absurdist existential feast, following Taisto and his compatriots as they make their very strange way through a very bizarre world. The third part of the trilogy, The Match Factory Girl (1990), will screen October 28-30, taking a week off as Kaurismäki’s latest, the wonderful Le Havre, opens at the IFC on October 21.