Le Havre. 2011. Finland/France/Germany. Written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki. With André Wilms, Kati Outinen, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Blondin Miguel. DCP. In French; English subtitles. 93 min.
Inspired by French poetic realism of the 1930s, Aki Kaurismäki’s Le Havre takes us to the titular port city, where we meet Marcel Marx, an elderly shoeshiner and struggling writer named after a famous revolutionary socialist, and his wife Arletty, whose name pays tribute to the star of Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord (1938), Le jour se lève (1939), and Les Enfants du Paradis (1945). When Marx crosses paths with an underage, undocumented immigrant hiding from police, the power of human solidarity, as often seen in Kaurismäki’s cinema, offers a glimmer of hope and a chance for resistance in a world that’s often too brutal to be reckoned with.