“A movie without at least one live music performance is like a Pope without artificial teeth.” So says Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki in a conversation with Damaged Goods about his remarkable new film Le Havre.

 

Laika and Idrissa (Blondin Miguel). Photographer: Marja-Leena Hukkanen. All images © Sputnik Oy.

 

Aki Kaurismäki, earlier in his career, made a mischievous joke, stating that he wished “to make a film that will make Robert Bresson seem like a director of epic action pictures.” I wouldn’t dare attempt a better description of Kaurismäki’s almost thirty-year career. His films, including the outlandishly absurd Leningrad Cowboys Go America (1989) and the Cannes award winning The Man Without a Past (2002), are deadpan but sincere, ironic but infused with a real love for human beings and their place in the world. His new film, Le Havre (2001), is the tale of Marcel Marx, a former bohemian and current shoe shiner, who, with the help of the local community, helps hide a young African immigrant from the police. The film plays to Kaurismäki’s strengths, and comes out the better for it, resulting in one of the best works of his long career.

Kaurismäki generously answered a few of my questions through e-mail.

Craig Hubert How do you usually begin a project? Does it start with character? Location?

Aki Kaurismäki There is no usual way. Once it started with a match. Twice, when forced to write without any idea, from a simple fact: a man comes from the north to the Capital. Le Havre started with character, story and location.

CH What is your writing process like? Do you plan extensively or do much research?

AK After I get the idea, I let the subconscious do the job for some time. After a month, or two or three, I sit down and print the screenplay out of my poor head. It takes a long weekend or maximum a week. One version only, but I often polish the dialogues while shooting. With Le Havre I read everything I found about paperless refugees in Europe. That was the first time I did research and with a good reason; with this kind of subject one can’t afford a technical mistake.

CH How did you arrive at Le Havre as the setting of the film?

AK I started driving west from Genoa, Italy, and during two years I studied every harbor town until the Belgium border (nobody is that desperate). I found many beautiful but—production-wise—hopeless towns where it would have been evening before you got the light trucks parked and meanwhile the city would be in traffic chaos.

Thanks to the Allies, Le Havre was bombed to the ground in World War II and while rebuilding it in early ’50s the architect August Perret wanted to make wide streets (Avenue Foch is 50 centimeters wider than Champs-Élysées). I can’t deny that since Le Havre is kind of a Nordic town (by French standards) by the logic of local people—and I’m not exactly Mediterranean—I found it very easy and joyful to shoot there. It is the only place where wind can blow on six sides of a house.

CH The character of Marcel first appeared in your film La Vie de Bohème (1992). What interested you in revisiting that character many years later?

AK It of course helped me to know at least one character beforehand, and nobody else could be disturbed since the few people who have seen La Vie de Bohème are in the sanatorium.

CH Are there any other characters from your films that you would like to revisit?

AK Not without the original actors and there are unfortunately not too many left.

CH Blondin Miguel, who plays the young Idrissa in Le Havre, is wonderful in the film. Was this his first film? Where did you find him?

AK Yes. I mean that he was cool and this was his first film (and first time acting anyway). Gilles Charmant, my first assistant director, raided the schools of Paris with some help and in the end I had five possibilities to pick from. It was a hard choice since they all seemed very good. But hesitation is for gamblers. I was lucky.

 

Marcel Marx (André Wilms) and Arletty (Kati Outinen). Photographer: Marja-Leena Hukkanen. All images © Sputnik Oy.

 

CH You’ve often been called a minimalist, but I found the compositions in Le Havre complex and filled with ideas. How do you approach composition when making a film?

AK It has never disturbed me, but the nickname “minimalist” obviously comes from The Match Factory Girl, which, indeed, is quite minimalistic. But after that I’ve made many films full of talking and shot everywhere but the Moon . . . it sometimes sounds a bit odd. Of course they are “minimalist” compared to Ben Hur, which by the way has quite minimalistic dialogue.

The compositions I fix myself and after that I fill the picture with a few objects and rare colors.

CH The colors in the film are beautiful, with an abundance of blue hues—especially in the hospital and in Marcel’s home. You’ve worked in both black and white and color in the past—what dictates that choice?

AK The ideas of films come either in color or black and white. It can´t be changed afterwards.

CH The film features many allusions to classic French cinema, especially Marcel Carné. Do you often look back at films from the past before starting a project? Why was it important to include those allusions in Le Havre?

AK I do my homework. Before Juha (1999), which was a silent movie, I watched hundreds of silent classics and before Le Havre I studied some French cinema from ’30s and ’40s to “catch” the feeling of French “neorealism”. I was studying and yes, I hope you can feel at least a glimpse of Carné in this film.

CH Rock and roll and blues music has been an important part of many of your films. Le Havre is no different. Can you talk little about what interests you about music, rock and roll specifically, and how you found the Little Joe, who plays the benefit concert in the film?

AK Little Bob is the Elvis (beside Johnny Halliday, somebody might add) of French rock and roll and he lives in Le Havre. After meeting the character I wrote him directly in the film and the wife too. For me a movie without at least one live music performance is like a Pope without artificial teeth.

CH Your previous three films were part of a trilogy. Is Le Havre the first piece in a new trilogy? If so, what can we expect in the future?

AK Two more harbor town stories, but not too soon.

CH In your films, characters are often seen enjoying a drink. It is a social situation you seem fond of, a form of community. Do you have a favorite bar? What is your favorite drink?

AK My all time favorite bar (and believe me, I’ve seen many) is Jimmy´s Corner in New York just off Times Square.

I don´t drink heavily anymore and maybe therefore my favorite drink nowadays is dry white wine, preferably Portuguese vinho verde. As cold as a tin roof in a winter night.

 

Le Havre opens in select theaters Friday, October 21. IFC Center in New York is screening a selection of Kaurismaki’s films through December 18.

 

Craig Hubert is a writer based in New York City.