#922: KAURISMÄKI, Aki: The Other Side Of Hope (2017)

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KAURISMÄKI, Aki (Finland)
The Other Side Of Hope [2017]
Spine #922
Blu-ray


This wry, melancholic comedy from Aki Kaurismäki, a response to the ongoing global refugee crisis, follows two people searching for a place to call home. Khaled (Sherwan Haji), a displaced Syrian, lands in Helsinki as a stowaway; meanwhile, middle-aged Finnish salesman Wikström (Sakari Kuosmanen) leaves his wife and his job and buys a conspicuously unprofitable restaurant. Khaled is denied asylum but decides not to return to Aleppo — and the paths of the two men cross fortuitously. As deadpan as the best of the director's work, and with a deep well of empathy for its down-but-not-out characters (many of them played by members of Kaurismäki's loyal stock company), The Other Side of Hope is a bittersweet celebration of pockets of human kindness in an unwelcoming world.

100 minutes
Color
5.1 Surround
in Finnish and Arabic
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2018
Director/Writer

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

 The Booklet

Ten-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Girish Shambu.

Commentary

None.

Interview

With actor Haji.

Footage

From the press conference for the film’s premiere at the 2017 Berlin International Film Festival, featuring Kaurismäki, Haji, land actor Kuosmanen.

Aki and Peter

Video essay by filmmaker Daniel Raim, based on a 1997 essay by critic Peter von Bagh, to whom The Other Side of Hope is dedicated.

Music videos

Trailers

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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