01 July
2017
“The Other Side of Hope (Toivon Tuolla
Puolen)”---The O.P.E.N. (Singapore International Festival of Arts)
Release Year: 2017
Country: Finland, Germany
Director: Aki Kaurismaki
Cast: Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kuosmanen
Location I watched: The Projector
The O.P.E.N. is the pre-festival of the
annual Singapore International Festival of Arts (SIFA). O.P.E.N. stands for
Open Participate Engage Negotiate. It encourages audience ownership of ideas,
issues and themes. Every year the program includes not only exhibition, theatre
performance or concert, but also lecture or various events that audience can
join. This year (2017)’s special event is “The
O.P.E.N. Kitchens” inspired by the philosophy of Lebanese culinary
activist, Kamal Mouzawak. Mr Mouzawak also has a lecture as part of the O.P.E.N.
The concept of “The O.P.E.N. Kitchens”
is visiting somebody’s house, cooking together, eating together and sharing
moments with the host, here, in Singapore, a multi-racial country. This is the
last year of Ong Keng Sen as Founding Festival Director of SIFA, so such edgy
projects beyond just “art” may not be held from next year. Anyway, every year,
the O.P.E.N. has a film program. Last year (2016), the opening film was Miguel Gomes’s
“The Arabian Nights” trilogy. This
year (2017) started with Aki Kaurismaki’s “The
Other Side of Hope”.
Aki Kaurismaki’s latest film is set in a
port town, Helsinki, about the friendship between Khaled, a young Syrian
refugee and Wikstrom, an old restaurant owner. For some reason, Kaurismaki’s
films are popular among cinephiles in Japan. Most of his past films have been
released in Japan. It may be the result of a Japanese distributor’s effort, but
perhaps it may be that the Japanese audience traditionally likes watching a
film about a humble life of ordinary citizens. “Humble” is a nice word, but
frankly speaking, it is “poor”. That may be my prejudice against Japanese
cinephiles, though.
In “The
Other Side of Hope”, the characters are also “humble” or lame people who
often appear in other Kaurismaki’s films. However, what is described there is
not just a reality of small citizens. Although ordinary things are filmed, the
scenes become something unordinary. It is something called “hyper real” by Mark
Kermode, a BBC film critic. This “hyper real” vision which makes audience feel
strange or dreamy is also another feature of his films.
The characters’ face is always stiff. When
the stiff-faced people decisively take some actions in the “hyper real” space,
even if the action itself is reasonable, the scene evokes a laugh. The laugh is
not wet, rather it can be called objective humour. The characters do not show
his/her emotion. They do not talk so much. We cannot clearly know what they are
thinking. The direction does not help to explain that, either. The film does
not force emotion on us. It is just observing the slight strange people on
screen. The dryness is connecting to objective humour.
However, the film is not just a collection
of chopped incidents. It is not emphasized, but the journey of the characters’
mind is flowing under the dry surface of the film. For example, Wikstrom was
kicked out by his wife in the first part of the film, but he goes to meet her
in the later part. Although there is no explanation at all about his action, we
can assume that a little something happened in his mind while he is unexpectedly
helping Khaled, who is desperately looking for his separated sister.
It is not shown off, either, but
fluctuations in the characters’ mood are also captured in scenes. Especially when
space is filled with live music, the scene is more effective. For example, one
day, after his interview with Finnish officers, Khaled is just listening to
live band music in a bar. For some reason, that scene is quite impressive.
In “The Other Side of Hope”, the characters
are off from the main stream. They are poor or lame, and sometimes do something
unreasonable. However, they do not pity themselves. They do not rely on others.
People standing by themselves alone, such isolated people naturally help others,
while still keeping their stiff faces. Then, the film with dry humour turns to
something quite touching. For such unglamorous, but magical moments, this film
will be beloved by us, the audience. (10 July 2017)
 |
| The lobby of the Projector, the venue |
 |
| Exterior view of The Projector (5th floor of Golden Mile Tower) |
