“With its flashback structure, intense low-key lighting, and the rich psychological portraiture of even the smallest characters, Crossfire has the look and depth of a signature ’40s noir, but it’s really a social problem picture in drag—like a Stanley Kramer picture with style or one of those instructively anti-fascist genre films of the era such as Brute Force. Because the movie is so direct in its messaging and pleasingly two-fisted in its delivery, it’s easy to sometimes overlook the central oddness of the narrative’s inciting event. If it seems like there’s something unspoken in the circumstances around the murder—i.e., why would an unassuming man invite strange men he just met at a bar up to his apartment in the first place?—that’s because there is.” Michael Koresky’s inclusion of Crossfire in his ongoing survey of queer cinema highlights how the subject of homosexuality was so controversial it was removed in the novel’s film adaptation as the reason for the victim’s murder, yet also so resonant that the movie can’t help a gentle homoeroticism from gleaming through on occasion.
“Travel has long been one of Kaurismäki’s favorite themes. Many of his early films center on Finnish men—often alienated from society—who find a way to escape to romantic or utopian destinations, frequently by ship, as in Shadows in Paradise (1986) and Ariel (1988). But these white men, even if they are outsiders on the bottom rungs of society, still possess freedoms that most of the world lacks. Starting with Le Havre (2011) and continuing with The Other Side of Hope, Kaurismäki switched course by associating travel not with native Finns but with migrants who are people of color. This has been a timely and apt choice on his part, given that we are in the middle of a global displacement crisis on a scale comparable to that of World War II.” Aki Kaurismäki’s The Other Side of Hope is, for Girish Shambu, both something old and something new, a continuation of the director’s recent concern with race and immigration as well as a fine addition to his career-long portraits of alienation, the hardships and rewards of labor, and dogs.
Read More “The View Beyond Parallax… more reads for the week of May 18”
