Review of The Match Factory Girl (1990) by Tibor B — 02 Mar 2008

Although an overbearing pessimism is always prevalent in Kaurismaki's work, his films prior to this have nearly always found some form of redemption or hope in a connection struck between people, if not quite traditional romantic "love".

Here, tragically, that connection never comes. Kati Outinen is spellbinding as Iris, a factory worker living with her dour and selfish mother and step-father, and who is unable to quite distinguish fantasy from reality, as when she misreads her relationship with a misogynist man who mistakes her for a prostitute for a one night stand.

Everything about the film is near pefect, from the editing, the Twin Peaks-like shots of production line wood manufacture and grim industrial landscape to the absence of dialogue and the music. This is about as grim as films come, but there's something strangely beautiful about this quiet tragedy.