Director-screenwriter Kaurismäki seems to portray a way of feeling that defies circumstance. The protagonists see contentment and adversity without glee, remorse or recrimination. There is an unspoken lesson. In relating to one another the protagonists do not require validation, offer explanations or make demands. Main character Taisto faces the coarsest of the coarse amicably without fawning fearfully or retaliating reactively. Another character, the boy, is intelligent, quiet, never doubts, has no complex puzzlement about loyalty. What is remarkable is that none of the foregoing is typical of a real, live modern person: most of us spend thousands attempting to reach such a state of grace.
Review of Ariel
Ariel
(1988)
A Study in Acceptance and Spontaneity - a Way of Being that Defies Circumstance
30 March 2004