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The Match Factory Girl

Tulitikkutehtaan tyttö. Aki Kaurismäki. 1990. ⚄

OK, here we go. After I don’t know how many movies: Here’s Kaurismäki’s breakthrough movie, that in retrospect made all his previous movies seem better. (After this movie, an eight-movie Kaurismäki er festival? was mounted in New York.) And I think I saw this at the Cinematheque back then!

[rolls movie]

[twenty minute-ish pass ok it’s a lot longer but that’s how far the movie progressed]

So I started this move and then switched to something else because of reasons, and then I learned that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is dead so now I’m back watching this movie. Who’s going to be the next supreme? Stephen Miller?

*sigh*

So I’m now a lot more depressed than when I started watching this movie, and now every single scene seems filled with depressing dread, as they should be.

[the end]

All of Kaurismäki’s strength and weaknesses are in this movie: But to the nth degree. Kaurismäki’s loathsome taste in music is even worse here than normally, making many scenes unbearable, and his staid actors are better here than ever before, making many scenes scintillating.

But it’s a really good, unique movie, deserving all the plaudits and general excitement that it received at the time.

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