Review of The Match Factory Girl (1990) by Alejandra S — 24 Nov 2009

After hearing Kaurismäki's name here and there, I decided to check out two of his films. The first was The Match Factory Girl. Already, I can see the style. I loved how minimal and strange this film was.

Kati Outinen has maybe a total of thirty seconds of dialogue in the whole 68 minutes and still puts on a show with her stone-faced mannerisms and quirky behavior. I think it was both sad and funny and I didn't expect it to end with her getting caught and taken away .

Kaurismäki seems to habitually linger on the setting after the character(s) leave in this fim, right until the final shot, and his choice of music puts it all over the top. The tone of this reminded me of Roy Andersson's two recent films, and I love those films.