Aki Kaurismaki is like a Finnish Jim Jarmusch--deadpan and flatly paced, though in color and cut a little bit quicker. Shadows in Paradise shares a lot with Jarmusch's Stranger than Paradise, especially the first half, in that the existent romance between the leads is so undertoned it's almost invisible, and can break like gossamer. Nevertheless, also like gossamer, it's stronger than most people imagine and somehow the characters end up coming through to each other in the end. Though really, it's not like they had anything better to do with their lives, living in cold, muted, and poor Finland.
In terms of plot points, there's not much. A garbage man dates a grocery store cashier, but their relationship is rocky from the beginning and hardly mutually satisfying. She ends up getting fired, and steals a cashbox from her former employer for revenge. This sort of forces the two together, though it's not like that makes their relationship really start--it's when the man gets beaten up and decides there's nothing else he really wants to do that he insists that they work it out. In the meantime, there's a lot of droll, flat Finnish activity and depression to look at.
Even though it ends in the cruise it's far from an elated ending, and even in scenes where characters get mightily depressed and break up, it's far from depressing. Kaurismaki has an almost "Eh, it is what it is" philosophy about everything in this movie, and the dialog feels like it's subtle when in fact it's really amazingly direct, and all of the characters mean what they say.
--PolarisDiB
In terms of plot points, there's not much. A garbage man dates a grocery store cashier, but their relationship is rocky from the beginning and hardly mutually satisfying. She ends up getting fired, and steals a cashbox from her former employer for revenge. This sort of forces the two together, though it's not like that makes their relationship really start--it's when the man gets beaten up and decides there's nothing else he really wants to do that he insists that they work it out. In the meantime, there's a lot of droll, flat Finnish activity and depression to look at.
Even though it ends in the cruise it's far from an elated ending, and even in scenes where characters get mightily depressed and break up, it's far from depressing. Kaurismaki has an almost "Eh, it is what it is" philosophy about everything in this movie, and the dialog feels like it's subtle when in fact it's really amazingly direct, and all of the characters mean what they say.
--PolarisDiB