Saturday, February 6, 2021

1199. Le Havre

Le Havre
2011
Directed by Aki Kaurismaki














I saw somewhere that this film was described as "sunny," so I was excited to watch it. I could use some cheering up lately. Well, it was certainly more upbeat than our tour of human misery has allowed for lately, so I was happy it came along.

Marcel Marx has given up his dreams of becoming an author and is currently living in the port city of Le Havre. He works as a shoeshiner and lives with his wife, Arletty. Arletty starts to get sick (having just watched Amour, I had a really bad feeling about this). At the same time, Marcel comes across an underage illegal immigrant from Africa. Along with his neighbors, Marcel attempts to hide him from the police.

As you can probably surmise from the description, it's heartwarming watching somebody attempting to help a stranger at great risk to himself. We haven't exactly been treated to a lot of heroes lately. My favorite parts were the interactions between Marcel and Idrissa, and I almost wish we had more dialogue between them to sink our teeth into. As is, the movie is fairly enjoyable.

So thank you Le Havre, for bringing a little bit of sunshine to this blog.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Laika the dog also had a role in La Vie de Boheme.

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