Review of Drifting Clouds (1996) by Hans J. E — 02 May 2010

Strange one, our generation. Between the "me and only me" of the eighties and the "i don't care" youth of the two thousands. The late stage of capitalism is here, and in Finland too. The myth of the social democrat society falls with a thump in this beautiful minimalist film from Aki Kaurismaki.

With silences and soft pastels, Kaurismaki tells the story of a couple that founds itself unemployed and with debts. Slowly but unrelently they fall not by the cracks but in the pit of capitalism' forgotten. And with them they take a bunch of workers and start to visit the world of despair and bleakness of those that look for job knowing there is no one.

So the end is near and Kaurismaki suggest to us that the solution is to generate from the inside, to forget about the job market and make what we want by ourselves. Is the film's solution naive? It is if we think it from the capitalist perspective. But demonstrates that all that workers have a potential that is being spoiled by the actual societal arrangements. With a providential backer (other than the "we don't take risks" banks) our society (all of human society) could be a better place to work, and live.