The Other Side of Hope

Probably Kaurismaki’s most topical film, this is a paean to the pluck and courage of the immigrant and to the humanity of the citizens who support them. It may cover the same plot and emotional territory of his Le Havre (2011) but the European and American debate over immigration gives it a new urgency.

The title works two ways. The desperate Khaled seems beyond hope when he pulls himself out of a coal bin. He escapes battered Aleppo only to be rejected by the Finnish asylum board. 

But the timely kindness he gets from strangers is also beyond anything he could realistically hope for. Street people magically materialize to drive off the redneck Liberation front determined to kill the “camel rider.” The Iraqi refugee and the blonde worker he befriends at the centre reveal an indefatigable generosity. 

Khaled fulfills is mission to save his sister Miriam (evoking the earlier emigre Moses and his sister Miriam) thanks to the generosity of the truck-driver and Khaled’s own resolve to cling to his fading life long enough to see her through. Like Moses, Khaled doesn’t get to the promised land either.

Khaled’s chief support turns out to be Wikstrom, an unlikely hero in any other vision but Kaurismaki’s. Wikstrom is a traveling shirt salesman whom we meet as he abandons his woebegone wife. Seeking renewal, Wikstrom buys a down-at-heels restaurant which he struggles to revive — along with the downtrodden staff the previous owner had exploited and abused. 

The bond between Khaled and Wikstrom begins when they quarrel over home space. Wikstrom won’t let the Syrian sleep in his garbage area. They exchange nose punches, then Wikstrom feeds him and provides a job, fake ID and a storage unit home. 

Wikstrom’s generosity ends up saving his staff, then Miriam, and ultimately even his wife. His leaving shook her out of her alcoholism and she’s running her own modest business. They resume their marriage and she will be his new hostess. 

So the film traces two men’s unusual transcendence, the immigrant and the salesman. Of course, in Kaurismaki’s usual tone, there are no large emotions or grandiose effects. The faces are all proletarian, plain, appealing in humanity not beauty. Conversations are banal, silent stares long, baleful, empty. The camera rarely moves and very little ever happens — just the quiet unfolding of people with small, tender and moving lives. 
     Wikstrom finances his restaurant purchase at a big stake poker game. In the climactic hand he’s up against four aces — as strong a hand as one can expect. But Wikstrom’s winning straight flush is the lowest denomination you can get: the two, three, four, five and six of clubs. That moment encapsulates Kaurismaki’s vision and style. The lowly, the most unprepossessing and bathetic, they win because they are the bedrock of humanity.