LE HAVRE

Renowned Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki also scripted this endearing dramatic comedy, the story of a failed author in the port city of Le Havre trying to hide an illegal immigrant child from discovery by the police. LE HAVRE is Kaurismäki's second French-language film and it received the FIPRESCI Prize at Cannes 2011 and top prize for best international film at Munich 2011.
 
Marcel Marx (Andre Wilms), is the struggling author who has relocated to Le Havre, his life revolving around his sick wife Arletty (Kati Outinen), his local bistro, and his new profession as a shoeshiner. The dogged detective Monet (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) was patterned after the police inspector from Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment.
 
LE HAVRE is a pleasure for the senses, a heartwarming and irreverent political commentary that is right up there with Kaurismäki's best comic work. His heroes are Chaplin and the befuddled Jacques Tati, and his films are odes to humanity, solidarity and kindness - this one is loaded with Kaurismäki's trademark wit and off-beat humour as well as compassion for the socially vulnerable. And, it is the most good-natured and purely enjoyable of his films...

2011 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL COMPETITION: FIPRESCI Award
2011 LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL OFFICIAL COMPETITION
2011 MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL PANORAMA